Hugs and condolences for those who cared for and worked with the late character actor William Smith (3.24.33 – 7.5.21). Smith served in the Air Force during the Korean War and flew “ferret” missions over Russia; he was also smart and enterprising enough to attain both CIA and NSA clearances, but he was soon after lured by an acting career that began in the early ’50s, when he was in his early 20s.
I’ve heard or read that Smith off-camera was an amiable, kind-hearted fellow with engaging social skills, but he was most often cast as a belligerent of one kind or another. Always with a certain glint of madness; always threatening the hero or protagonist with a bullet or a pounding; always an over-sized, out-for-blood sociopath of one kind or another.
I’m sorry but after a while that’s really not interesting. Once I’ve gotten to know a proverbial bad guy in a series of films or TV appearances, I want to see his gentler, kinder side. I want to feel his heart, know what he wants and cares for. Because constant psycho-seething is suffocating.
Smith played a few even-tempered lawmen on TV; the strongest impression he ever made as a non-villain was in Lamont Johnson‘s The Last American Hero (’73), in which he played a race-car driving competitor of Jeff Bridges‘ Junior Jackson; a non-threatening Smith also came across in a short introductory scene in John Milius‘s Conan the Barbarian (’82), in which he played the young Conan’s father.