Kent Smith
Born: 1907-03-19 in New York City, New York, USA
Died: 1985-04-23
Known For: Acting
Biography
Kent Smith (born Frank Kent Smith) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Smith's early acting experience started in 1925 when he was one of the founders of the famed Harvard "University Players", which later included Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Joshua Logan and Margaret Sullavan in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Smith's stock experience also included productions with the Maryland Theatre in Baltimore. His professional acting debut was in 1929 in Blind Window in Baltimore, Mayland. He made his Broadway acting debut in 1932 in Men Must Fight. He also appeared on Broadway in Measure for Measure, Sweet Love Remembered, The Best Man, Ah, Wilderness!, Dodsworth, Saint Joan,, Old Acquaintance, Antony and Cleopatra and Bus Stop. Smith moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The Garden Murder Case. He appeared in such films as Cat People, Hitler's Children, This Land Is Mine, Three Russian Girls, Youth Runs Wild, The Curse of the Cat People, The Spiral Staircase, Nora Prentiss, Magic Town, My Foolish Heart, The Fountainhead, and The Damned Don't Cry. He continued acting in films such as Comanche, Sayonara, Party Girl, The Mugger, Imitation General, The Badlanders, This Earth Is Mine, Strangers When We Meet, Susan Slade, The Balcony, A Distant Trumpet, Youngblood Hawke, and The Young Lovers. Smith had roles in television films such as How Awful About Allan, The Night Stalker, The Judge and Jake Wyler, The Cat Creature, The Affair and The Disappearance of Flight 412. His numerous television credits included a continuing role in the soap opera Peyton Place as Dr. Robert Morton; Smith's wife, actress Edith Atwater, played his character's wife on the series. He began guest-starring in television series in 1949 in The Philco Television Playhouse, and also appeared in Robert Montgomery Presents, Wagon Train, General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, The Beverly Hillbillies, Rawhide, The Americans, Barnaby Jones, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, and the 1976 miniseries Once an Eagle. His last appearance was in a 1977 episode of Wonder Woman.
Filmography
1982
- Taking Tiger Mountain ... (Producer)
1978
- Die Sister, Die! as Dr. Thorne
1976
- Once an Eagle as Gen. Jacklyn
- Gibbsville
1975
- Wonder Woman as Chief Justice Brown
1974
- The Disappearance of Flight 412 as Gen. Enright
1973
- The Affair as Mr. Patterson
- The Cat Creature as Frank Lucas
- Lost Horizon as Bill Fergunson
1972
- The Streets of San Francisco
- Probe as Dr. Edward Laurent
- The Night Stalker as District Attorney Tom Paine
- Pete 'n' Tillie as Father Keating
- The Crooked Hearts as James Simpson
- The Female Instinct as Warren Packer
- Another Part of the Forest as Simon Isham
- Delphi Bureau as Prescott
- The Judge and Jake Wyler as Robert Dodd
1971
- Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law as Keats
- The Last Child as Gus Iverson
1970
- Night Gallery as Doctor
- The Games as Kaverley
- How Awful About Allan as Raymond
1969
- Death of a Gunfighter as Andrew Oxley
1968
- Assignment to Kill as Mr. Eversley
- Kona Coast as Akamai Barnes
1967
- The Invaders as Stan Arthur
- Games as Harry Gordon
- A Covenant with Death as Oliver Parmalee
- The Money Jungle as Paul Kimmel
1966
- Mission: Impossible as Senator William Townsend
- Felony Squad
- The Trouble with Angels as Uncle George Clancy
1965
- The Wild Wild West as Governor Winston E. Brubaker
- The F.B.I. as US Attorney Leonard Vanatter
1964
- Daniel Boone as General Hugh Scott
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as Mr. Macy
- Profiles in Courage as Charles Evans Hughes
- Youngblood Hawke as Paul Winter Sr.
- A Distant Trumpet as Secretary of War
- The Young Lovers as Dr. Shoemaker
1963
- The Outer Limits as Dr. Block
- The Great Adventure as Gen. Nelson Miles
- Arrest and Trial
- The Balcony as General
1962
- The Beverly Hillbillies as Clifton Cavanaugh
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour as Mr. Benner
- Going My Way
- Moon Pilot as Secretary of the Air Force
1961
- The Defenders as Dwight Harkavy
- Cain's Hundred as Charles Dennis
- Susan Slade as Dr. Fain
1960
- Checkmate as Ainslee
- The Roaring 20's
- The Barbara Stanwyck Show as Dexter Willis
- The Aquanauts as George
- Strangers When We Meet as Stanley Baxter
1959
- Rawhide
- Adventures in Paradise as Michael Legrange
- This Earth Is Mine as Francis Fairon
1958
- Naked City as George Blake
- Lawman as Kent Smith
- 77 Sunset Strip as Robert Vincent
- Bronco
- The Mugger as Dr. Pete Graham
- The Badlanders as Cyril Lounsberry
- Party Girl as Jeffrey Stewart
- Imitation General as Brig. Gen. Charles Lane
1957
- Perry Mason as Dr. Arthur Younger
- Wagon Train as Prof. Paul Owens
- Have Gun, Will Travel
- M Squad as Howard Meston
- Sayonara as Gen. Webster
- Suspicion as Dr. Jonathan Michel, the Psychiatrist
1956
- Comanche as Quanah Parker
1955
- Gunsmoke as Bealton
- Matinee Theater
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents as Gilbert Hughes
- The Millionaire as Bill Franklin
1953
- General Electric Theater as Dr. Jonathan Michael
1952
- Paula as John Rogers
1951
- Hallmark Hall of Fame as Bolingbroke
1950
- Robert Montgomery Presents as Prince Albert
- Lux Video Theatre as David Barlow
- The Damned Don't Cry as Martin Blackford
- This Side of the Law as David Cummins
- My Foolish Heart as Lewis H. Wengler
- Little Women: Jo's Story as Professor Fritz Bhaer
1949
- Lights Out
- The Fountainhead as Peter Keating
1948
- Studio One as Friedrich Bhaer
- The Philco Television Playhouse as John Wilkes Booth
- Design for Death as Narrator
1947
- Magic Town as Hoopendecker
- Nora Prentiss as Dr. Richard Talbot
- The Voice of the Turtle as Kenneth Bartlett
1946
- The Spiral Staircase as Dr. Parry
- Okay for Sound
1945
- Your Next Job as Instructor Lieutenant
- Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bomb Loading Procedures as Briefing Colonel
1944
- The Curse of the Cat People as Oliver 'Ollie' Reed
- Resisting Enemy Interrogation as Capt. Reining - American Working for the Nazis
- Youth Runs Wild as Danny Coates
1943
- This Land Is Mine as Paul Martin
- Forever and a Day as Gates Trimble Pomfret
- Hitler's Children as Professor Nichols
- Three Russian Girls as John Hill
- Three Cadets as Captain A. Edwards
- Dental Health as Narrator
1942
- Cat People as Oliver Reed
1939
- Back Door to Heaven as Attorney (uncredited)
1936
- The Garden Murder Case as Woode Swift