Whitney Sudler-Smith

Whitney Sudler-Smith (born June 2, 1968) is an American filmmaker, television director, and a classically trained guitarist. He is the creator and executive producer of Bravo's Southern Charm, a reality docu-series about life in Charleston, South Carolina. He was an executive producer on the Savannah and New Orleans spin-off shows.^[1]

Whitney Sudler-Smith
Born	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Other names	Whitney Smith
Occupation(s)	film and television director
Years active	1996–present
Parent	Patricia Altschul

Early years

Sudler-Smith was born June 2, 1968 in Washington, D.C., however he grew up in Virginia.^{[citation needed]} His mother is Patricia Altschul (then Pat Dey-Smith),^[2] a socialite. He graduated from Georgetown Day School and George Washington University.^{[citation needed]} He studied at Oxford University and the Alliance Française in Paris.^{[citation needed]} His late father, Lon Hayes Smith, was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, which is a peninsula.^{[citation needed]}

Career

In 1996, Sudler-Smith directed two small films Going for Baroque and Afternoon Delight.^[3] In 1998, he released an Indie film Bubba and Ike, a "redneck buddy comedy" starring Jesse Borrego and Elisa Gabrielli which was first screened at the Austin Film Festival. In 2002, Sudler-Smith wrote and directed Torture TV, another Indie film starring Danny Huston and Trevor Goddard.^[4] Sudler-Smith is also a screenwriter. In 2010, he directed the documentary Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston about Roy Halston, a fashion designer. The film was met with mostly negative reviews and has a rating of 33% on review aggregating site Rottentomatoes.com.

Sudler-Smith is the creator and executive producer of Southern Charm, a reality show on Bravo which chronicles the social life of Charleston, SC.^{[5][failed verification]} He was the executive producer of two spin-off series, Southern Charm Savannah^[6] and Southern Charm New Orleans.^[7] While neither show was officially cancelled, they have not aired since 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Sudler-Smith's mother, Patricia Altschul, is the widow of Arthur Goodhart Altschul Sr., the prominent New York art collector and philanthropist who was a longtime general partner of Goldman Sachs.^[8] When Sudler-Smith announced plans during the show's first season to open a restaurant in Charleston, his mother told him, “I think that’s a little out of your realm.”

The show is sometimes filmed in Mikell House, a 9,480-square-foot mansion built in 1851 which Patricia Altschul bought in downtown Charleston.^[9] Sudler-Smith is in pre-production on the scripted comedy Family Office.