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Smenkhkare may well refer to not one, but two people:
To date, no objects have been found bearing the name Ankhkheprure Smenkhkare, whereas some clearly feminine objects with the name Ankhkheprure Neferneferuaten were reused in the burial of Tutankhamen. This suggests that Smenkhkare refers to a single person (different from Nefertiti). Also suggestive that Nefertiti was Smenkhkare is the fact that Smenkhkare appeared in the record about the same time that Nefertiti disappeared, and yet she is still portrayed as having performed the rites reserved for the heir to the throne at Akhenaten's funeral.
Others instead hold that the two names refer to the same person. Some say that this one person was Nefertiti, other that it was a male, Smenkhkare, who adopted Nefertiti's names, albeit with a slightly different arrangement of the glyphs.
Smenkhkare's parentage is unknown - the leading theories are that he is a son of Akhenaten or of Amenhotep III. Unlike the majority of other Pharaohs, the only claim he made was to have been "beloved" of Akhenaten, but he never states that the latter was his father. Moreover, whenever any of Akhenaten's daughters were referenced, they were referred to as "the king's daughter, of his loins, (daughter's name)." That there was no reference to another son would seem unlikely in such a patriarchal society. Furthermore, as evidenced by Cyril Aldred (a prominent Egyptologist), Smenkhkare would have to have been born at least three years before Akhenaten's reign began, making it very unlikely (given Akhenaten's assumed age of 12 at accession) that he was Akhenaten's son. Given that Akhenaten produced six daughters but no known sons, this makes it plausible for both Smenkhkare and his successor, Tutankhamen, to be sons of Amenhotep III, and therefore also brothers to Akhenaten.
A document names Smenkhkare as the husband of "the Chief Wife, his beloved, the Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Lady of the Two Lands, Meritaten" - who was the daughter of Akhenaten. And it was through her royal blood that he claimed legitimacy to the throne, as was the practice in the period. Meritaten seems to have died very shortly after her father, as did her daughter, Meritaten-ta-sherit. At this point, it is believed that Smenkhkare married Ankhesenpaaten. And shortly after that, perhaps less than 12 months later, Smenkhkare died.
In 1907, Arthur Weigall and Theodore Davis discovered a tomb known as "Tomb 55" in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb itself is a mystery, as the door bears the name Tutankhamen, the shrine and sarcophagus indicate that they were designed for Akhenaten's wife Kiya, and a very poorly preserved body that is considered, with about 80% certainty, to be male around 20 years of age. There are some indications that the body shares common traits with Tutankhamen, suggesting a close relative, but the poor degree of preservation makes this difficult to ascertain. Some consider this to be the mummy of Smenkhkare.
Although little is known about him, Smenkhkare's face may actually be the most well-known of all the Pharaohs: the image often used to illustrate books and exhibitions on Tutankhamen may well be of Smenkhkare. It comes from the middle coffin of Tutankhamen's tomb (Pharaohs were buried in a series of 3 coffins, like Russian dolls), and it clearly differs in appearance from the images on the inner and outer coffins. With a number of other artefacts in Tutankhamun's tomb bearing Smenkhkare's name, and with a reconstruction from the mummy in KV55 bearing a strong similarity, it may well be the face of Smenkhkare. Being more attractive than the alternatives (notably in being more mature, less boyish), the image has however been widely adopted for illustrations of Tutankhamun.