Elliott Smith, 1969-2003: Found fame in 'Good Will Hunting'

LOS ANGELES -- Elliott Smith, a singer-songwriter whose dark, introspective songs won him critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination, apparently has committed suicide, his publicist and coroner's officials said yesterday. He was 34.

His girlfriend found him Tuesday, dead of a stab wound to the chest that appeared to be self-inflicted.

Smith released five solo albums that achieved widespread acclaim and modest commercial success. "Miss Misery," recorded for Gus Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting," was nominated for an Oscar in 1998. He had lived in Portland and had a major Northwest following.

Smith's songs often were compared with those of Alex Chilton, Nick Drake and the Beatles, his favorite band. Lyrically, they addressed such subjects as drug addiction, troubled relationships and loneliness -- though Smith tried to distance himself from the idea that his music was a "superintimate confessional singer-songwriterish thing."

"I don't feel like my songs are particularly fragile or revealing," he said in a 1998 interview in the Los Angeles Times. "It's not like a diary."

However, Smith had spoken in interviews about his struggles with alcohol. "When I lived in New York I was really a bad alcoholic for a few years," he told Under the Radar magazine in an interview published in June 2003. He also spoke of a years-long struggle with drugs.

In an effort to quit drinking, Smith said he had undergone treatment that administers an intravenous solution meant to clear the bloodstream of toxins. At the time of the story's publication, he had been sober for about six months.

Smith was born Steven Paul Smith in Nebraska; his mother was a singer and his father was a psychiatrist. He spent most of his childhood with his mother in the suburbs of Dallas and then moved to Portland while in high school to live with his father.

He studied piano and guitar as a youth and began composing songs when he was 13. He began calling himself Elliott in middle school because Steve sounded too "jockish."

A graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., he later joined a Portland punk band called Heatmiser. On the side, he recorded several solo albums -- "Roman Candle" (1994), "Elliott Smith" (1995) and "Either/Or" (1997), all on independent labels -- that won him a devoted underground following.

In 1997, he moved to New York, where Van Sant offered to use several of his songs in "Good Will Hunting," which brought Smith's music to a mainstream audience.

Smith told AP Radio in 2000 that he didn't mind being remembered as the "Good Will Hunting" guy. "I liked that movie. I thought it was really nice that Gus put my songs in it. There's always some sort of name tag on any band, any person, so if that's the one I have, that's great."

But Smith didn't stop making new music. He said in the Under The Radar interview that his latest album, "From a Basement on the Hill" was near completion. He also said things were looking up for him.

"You know, for a couple of years I dropped out of just about everything. But I feel better today."

Associated Press reporters Ryan Pearson and Justin Glanville and P-I staff writer D. Parvaz contributed to this report.

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