Sally Bedell Smith is the best-selling author of six biographies: Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch (Random House 2012), For Love of Politics: Inside the Clinton White House (Random House, 2007), Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House (Random House, 2004), Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess (Times Books/Random House, 1999), Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman (Simon & Schuster, 1996), and In All His Glory: The Life & Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting (Simon & Schuster, 1990). Her biography of the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, was published by Random House in April 2017.

Ms. Smith began her career at Time magazine where she was a reporter-researcher from 1973 to 1977. She then joined TV Guide as a staff writer where she wrote feature articles and a weekly column. In 1982, Ms. Smith became a cultural news reporter for The New York Times, a position she held until 1985. She joined Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 1996.

Ms. Smith was awarded the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for magazine reporting in 1982 and was a fellow at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University from 1986 to 1987. In November 2008 she was inducted into the Radnor High School Hall of Fame. She received the 2012 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, an award presented by the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, and Elizabeth the Queen won the 2012 Goodreads Choice Award for best book in history and biography, the only major book award decided by readers, with over 1 million votes cast. Elizabeth the Queen was also selected by J.P. Morgan for its “2012 Reading List,” ten books chosen for their “inspirational messages, thought-provoking content, and stunning detail.” In 2012 Ms. Smith was the consultant to playwright Peter Morgan on The Audience, his award-winning drama about Queen Elizabeth II starring Helen Mirren.

She received her B.A. from Wheaton College and her M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She served for ten years on the Board of Trustees at Deerfield Academy, and has been a juror for the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards, a trustee at The Buckley School in New York City, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the Columbia Journalism Review.  She is currently a member of the Advisory Board for 826DC, a nonprofit tutoring center focused on teaching writing to inner-city students.

Sally Bedell Smith is the mother of three children and resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Stephen Smith.