Age: 70
Birthplace: Van Nuys, California, U.S.
Charles Martin Smith (born October 30, 1953) is an American film actor, writer, and director. He is best known for his roles in American Graffiti, Never Cry Wolf, Starman, The Buddy Holly Story and The Untouchables (all of which have loyal followings long after production) and for writing and directing the films Dolphin Tale, Dolphin Tale 2 and The Snow Walker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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" |