Biography

Early life

Smith was born in Van Nuys, California. His father, Frank Smith, was a film cartoonist and animator, while his uncle Paul J. Smith was an animator as well as a director for the Walter Lantz Studios. Smith spent three years of his youth in Paris, where his father managed the English-language branch of a French animation studio. He received his high school diploma from Grover Cleveland High School, Reseda, California. He attended California State University, Northridge and was awarded a B.A. in Theatre.

Acting background

Smith was discovered by a talent agent while acting in a school play, Man of La Mancha. After a few years of working in film and television, he landed the role of Terry "The Toad" Fields in George Lucas's 1973 film American Graffiti, a role he would reprise in the film's 1979 sequel, More American Graffiti.

In 1973, he and American Graffiti co-star Cindy Williams did an episode of Love, American Style entitled "Love and the Time Machine".

In 1974 he starred with Ron Howard again in The Spikes Gang, filmed in Spain, along with Lee Marvin and Gary Grimes; and in 1978 he earned a starring role in Cotton Candy, directed by Ron Howard.

Smith played one of Buddy Holly's bandmates in The Buddy Holly Story, a race car driver in Disney's Herbie Goes Bananas, and the starring role as a scientist in Never Cry Wolf. His work in Starman, as Mark Shermin, the SETI member sympathetic to the Starman's situation—where Richard Jaeckel's character of George Fox, who wanted to capture the Starman, was not—was also lauded. In 1979 Smith was cast alongside Barney Martin as the lead in Norman Lear's last TV series concept, McGurk: A Dog's Life, which never progressed beyond the pilot.

One of his other starring roles was in "Banshee (Ray Bradbury Theater)," an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater where he starred with Peter O'Toole and Jennifer Dale and also in "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar! (Ray Bradbury Theater)". One of his latter starring roles was in "The Beacon (The Twilight Zone)," an episode of The New Twilight Zone where he starred with Martin Landau and Giovanni Ribisi in an early role.

He received good reviews for his work in The Untouchables. After this he co-starred in The Hot Spot and Deep Cover, and in the mid-1990s in films such as Speechless, I Love Trouble, and Perfect Alibi.

Smith played a major role in the controversial HBO film And the Band Played On, then turned in a well-regarded performance in the TV miniseries Larry McMurtry's Streets of Laredo.

He also appeared in The Beast in (1996) and in a minor role in the big budget Deep Impact in 1998. He played a major character in the made-for-television movie Blackout Effect.

More recently he has appeared in mini-series such as P.T. Barnum, Kingdom Hospital and The Triangle as well as the feature film Lucky You directed by Curtis Hanson. In 2009 he played a featured role, Sheriff Golightly, on Fringe's second episode.

Never Cry Wolf

Smith devoted almost three years to filming Never Cry Wolf. Smith said, "I was much more closely involved in that picture than I had been in any other film. Not only acting, but writing and the whole creative process." He also found the process difficult. "During much of the two-year shooting schedule in Canada’s Yukon and in Nome, Alaska, I was the only actor present. It was the loneliest film I’ve ever worked on," Smith said. During the filming, he became so enamored of the Northwest that he decided to relocate to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he has resided since the mid-1980s.

Carroll Ballard, director of Never Cry Wolf, asked Smith to write much of the narration for the film. Smith also performed in a lengthy scene with wolves and caribou in which he was entirely naked. While working on this production, Smith formed a solid friendship with the author, Farley Mowat, and the two remained friends until Mowat's death in 2014.

Directing

Along with his acting career, since the mid-1990s Smith has increasingly focused on his work behind the camera both as a writer and director. His first film as director was the camp horror film Trick or Treat (1986) for Dino De Laurentiis. In 1992, Charles Martin Smith directed and at the same time acted in Fifty/Fifty, a movie filmed in Malaysia which also starred Robert Hays and Peter Weller. Fifty/Fifty is an action packed movie about Tengarra, a nation ruled by a cruel dictator. He was one of the directors of the TV series Space: Above and Beyond (1995) as well as the director of the initial episode ("Welcome to the Hellmouth") that launched the hit TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). He next directed the hugely successful feature film Air Bud (Disney, 1997), and two TV miniseries for Hallmark Entertainment, Roughing It, starring James Garner as Mark Twain, (2001) and Icon (2005), starring Patrick Swayze, Michael York and Patrick Bergin. He directed numerous episodes of the respected Canadian television series DaVinci's Inquest, and wrote and executive produced The Clinic, a 2 hour movie about a veterinary clinic for Animal Planet in 2003.

In 2003 he wrote and directed the acclaimed Canadian feature film The Snow Walker for Lions Gate Films, based on a story by Farley Mowat (of Never Cry Wolf fame) which marked a return to the Arctic for Smith and garnered nine Genie Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for Smith.

He has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia and also in Los Angeles, California since the 1980s and continues to add to production, directing, acting and writing credits in a career that has spanned more than 40 years.

In 2007, Smith wrote and directed the British/Canadian co-production Stone of Destiny for Mob Films, and Infinity Features, starring Charlie Cox, Robert Carlyle and Kate Mara. Stone of Destiny was the closing Gala Presentation for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. His next film was Dolphin Tale for Alcon Entertainment. The hit film, based on a true story, stars Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, Kris Kristofferson, Nathan Gamble and Cozi Zuehlsdorff, and was released on September 23, 2011 by Warner Bros. To date, the film has grossed over $70 million at the domestic box office and over $100 million world-wide.

He returned to write and direct the sequel, Dolphin Tale 2. He based his original script on various true-life events that have occurred at the Clearwater Marine Hospital, including the dramatic rescue of a baby dolphin named "Hope" that coincidentally happened during the wrap party of the first film, with many of the film's cast and crew watching. The entire cast returned to take part, and the movie was released by Warner Bros on September 12, 2014.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	The Brady Bunch	Ronnie	Episode "The Wheeler-Dealer"
1972	The Culpepper Cattle Co.	Tim Slater
	Fuzz	Baby
	Room 222		Episode "You Don't Know Me, He Said"
1973	Go Ask Alice (TV movie)	Jim
	Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid	Charles Bowdre
	American Graffiti	Terry 'The Toad' Fields
	Love, American Style (TV series)	Julius	Episode "Love and the Blue Plate Special/Love and the Man of the Year/Love and the Time Machine" (segment "Love and the Time Machine")
	Chase (TV series)	Little Bits	Episode "Sizzling Stones"
1974	The Streets of San Francisco (TV series)	Russell Jamison	Episode "Blockade"
	The Spikes Gang	Tod
	The Rookies (TV series)	Bobby Lewis	Episode "Death at 6 A.M."
	Petrocelli (TV series)	Frankie	Episode "A Covenant with Evil"
1975	Lucas Tanner (TV series)	Rod Jernigan	Episode "Those Who Cannot, Teach"
	Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins	Alan Boone
1976	No Deposit, No Return	Longnecker
	Law of the Land (TV movie)	Dudley
	Baretta (TV series)	Harold	Episode "Shoes"
1977	The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (TV series)	Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt	Episode "The Tenderfoot"
	The Hazing	Barney
1978	The Buddy Holly Story	Ray Bob
	Cotton Candy (TV movie)	George Smalley
1979	A Dog's Life (TV movie)	Tucker
	More American Graffiti	Terry 'The Toad' Fields
1980	When the Whistle Blows (TV series)	Jimmy	Episode "Love Is a Four-Letter Word"
	Herbie Goes Bananas	D.J.
1983	Never Cry Wolf	Farley Mowat / Tyler
1984	Starman	Mark Shermin
1985	The Twilight Zone (TV series)	Dr. Dennis Barrows	Episode "The Beacon/One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" (segment "The Beacon")
1986	Trick or Treat	Mr. Wimbley	Also directed the film
1987	The Untouchables	Agent Oscar Wallace
1989	The Experts	Mr. Smith
1986-1989	The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV series)	Douglas Rogers / Hugh Fortnum	Episodes "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!" (Fortnum) and "Banshee" (Rogers)
1990	The Hot Spot	Lon Gulick
1992	Deep Cover	Carver
	Boris and Natasha	Hotel Clerk
	Fifty/Fifty	Martin Sprue
1993	Partners (TV short)	'Grave Squad' Lawyer
	And the Band Played On (TV movie)	Dr. Harold Jaffe
	The Untouchables (TV series)	Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey	Episode "Attack on New York"
	Tales from the Crypt (TV series)	Colin	Episode "Half-Way Horrible"
	Picket Fences (TV series)	Lyman Pike	Episode "Blue Christmas"
1994	L.A. Law (TV series)	Dale Hardy	Episode "Dead Issue"
	I Love Trouble	Rick Medwick
	Roswell (TV movie)	Sheriff Wilcox
	Northern Exposure (TV series)	Roger Brewster (Satan)	Episode "The Robe"
	Speechless	Kratz
1995	Brothers' Destiny (TV movie)	Merriman
	Take Out the Beast (TV short)	The biorobot
	The Outer Limits (TV series)	Spencer Deighton	Episode "Blood Brothers"
	The X-Files (TV series)	Dr. Osbourne	Episode "F. Emasculata"
	Perfect Alibi	Franklin Dupard
	Streets of Laredo (TV mini-series)	Ned Brookshire (railroad accountant)
1996	Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland (Video Game)	Renfield
	The Final Cut	Capt. Weldon Mamet
	The Beast (TV movie)	Schuyler Graves
	Wedding Bell Blues	Oliver Napier
1997	Dead Silence (TV movie)	Roland W. Marks
1998	Blackout Effect (TV movie)	Henry Drake
	Deep Impact	Dr. Marcus Wolf (uncredited)
	Hoods	Gun Dealer (uncredited)
1999	The New Woody Woodpecker Show (TV series)	Marty	Episode "Pinheads/The Chilly Show/Silent Treatment"
	P.T. Barnum (TV movie)	Beach
	The Apartment Complex (TV movie)	Gary Glumley
2000	Here's to Life!	Ned
2000-2001	Family Law (TV series)	Mr. Chilton	Episodes "The Gay Divorcee" and "Going Home"
2001	Ally McBeal (TV series)	Mayor Horn	Episode "Nine One One"
2002	Roughing It (TV movie)	Platt
	Dead Heat	Morty
	Touching Wild Horses	Charles Thurston
2004	Kingdom Hospital (TV series)	Earl Swinton	Episode "Thy Kingdom Come"
	The Last Casino (TV movie)	Barnes
2005	Icon (TV movie)	Doctor	Also directed the film
	Left Behind: World at War	Vice President John Mallory
	The Triangle (TV mini-series)	Captain Jay
2005-2006	Da Vinci's City Hall (TV series)	Joe Friedland / Mike Franklin	Also directed 3 episodes
2006	Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV series)	Sheriff Bartley	Episode "Infiltrated"
2007	Still Small Voices	Burton Hayes
	Drive (TV mini-series)	Mr. Bright	Episodes "No Turning Back", "Let the Games Begin", "Partners", and "The Starting Line"
	Lucky You	Roy Durucher
2008	Jack and Jill vs. the World	Carlin
2009	Leverage (TV series)	Glenn Leary	Episode "The Beantown Bailout Job"
	Fringe (TV series)	Sheriff Golightly	Episode "Night of Desirable Objects"
2010	Psych (TV series)	Roy Kessler	Episode "Not Even Close... Encounters"
2014	Dolphin Tale 2	George Hatton	Also directed the film
2015	Motive (TV series)	Rick Wyatt	Episode "Frampton Comes Alive"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]