Paul Smith (American comedy actor)

Acting career during the 1950s

Born in Pittsburgh as Arthur Paul Smith, he moved to Los Angeles. By the time of his 22nd birthday in 1951, began an uninterrupted 25-year acting career which lasted until his retirement, at age 47, in 1976. During the 1950s, he was seen in twenty-four theatrical features, from I Want You (1951) to The FBI Story (1959), mostly unbilled or credited near the bottom of the cast list. One exception, in 1957, was a sixth-billed role in Elvis Presley's first starring vehicle, Loving You.

Smith appeared in 21 television episodes encompassing fourteen series, from 1955's Navy Log and The 20th Century Fox Hour to 1959's Dinah Shore Show, in addition to a regular role on the 1959 sitcom Fibber McGee and Molly.

Fibber McGee and Molly

In the first of his five sitcoms, Smith played the McGees' next-door neighbor Roy Norris, a family man with a wife (Elisabeth Fraser) and 11-year-old daughter (Barbara Beaird). The actors playing the McGees (Bob Sweeney and Cathy Lewis) could not duplicate the appeal of the long-running (1935–59) original radio McGees (Jim Jordan and Marian Jordan) and the NBC series folded in January 1960 after airing 13 episodes.

Acting career during the 1960s

In the course of the 1960s, which became his busiest decade, Smith was, again, continually employed, appearing in nine features: one in 1960, Visit to a Small Planet, one in 1961, The Silent Call, two in 1964, Advance to the Rear and Bikini Beach, one in 1965, The Great Race, two in 1968, Disney's The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit and the independent Stranger and the Dead Season, and two additional independents in 1969, The Erotic Adventures of Robin Hood (in which he was Will Scarlet) and The Assassination of the Dog. Aside from the three independents and one credited bit in Bikini Beach, his remaining five appearances, which were in major studio films, went unbilled. Although in comparison to twenty-four titles in the 1950s, his theatrical output dropped to nine, all of his remaining work schedule was consumed by television where his output increased exponentially.

Seen in episodes of thirty series, starting, in 1960, with Johnny Midnight, Markham, Checkmate and Thriller, and ending in 1969 with Ironside and Adam-12, he was a cast member in four sitcoms, among those series, and a semi-regular on a fifth, Bewitched, where, between 1966 and 1972, he appeared in nine episodes. His earliest 1960s sitcom was CBS' Mrs. G. Goes to College, where he appeared in 18 episodes.

No Time for Sergeants and Mr. Terrific

Three years following Mrs. G. and, after having spent a couple of 1963 episodes playing Commander Carter in the World War II-set military sitcom McHale's Navy, Smith was back in uniform as a clueless captain at Andrews Airforce Base, during peacetime, in No Time for Sergeants, his third regular role on a sitcom. Making its ABC debut on September 14, 1964, the series was based on a 1955 episode of the Golden Age of Television live anthology drama series, The United States Steel Hour, which starred Andy Griffith as Private Will Stockdale, a folksy storytelling southerner who has a commonsense remedy for every problem, thus frustrating his slow-burning, by-the-book sergeant. The play became a long-running 1955–57 Broadway play and a 1958 film, with star Andy Griffith continuing to repeat his role.

In 1964, Griffith was busy with The Andy Griffith Show, which had premiered in 1960. The role of Will Stockdale was ultimately won by little-known young actor Sammy Jackson. Smith's character, Captain Martin, sometimes called Captain Martinson, was unnamed and barely noticeable in the earlier productions and his primary function in the TV series, as the immediate superior of the sergeant and his recruits, was to react in a series of surprised, uncomprehending, confused or bemused expressions upon hearing Will Stockdale's explanations delivered in his patented southern drawl and observing his ability to easily overcome any adversity. The show completed a full season set of 34 episodes and 17 repeats in its Monday night at 8:30 time slot, but in a programming coincidence, was scheduled directly opposite Andy Griffith's sitcom on CBS and could not overcome the top-rated competition from the original Will Stockdale. The final repeat episode of No Time for Sergeants aired on September 6, 1965, 51 weeks after its premiere. Three and a half months later, on Christmas Eve.

Over a year of guest shots passed before Paul Smith was cast as a regular in another sitcom, his second on CBS and, again, on Monday night. The superhero spoof, Mr. Terrific, was a midseason replacement for The Fugitive-like failed sitcom Run, Buddy, Run. Programmed at 8, it was preceded by the cult sitcom Gilligan's Island and followed by three of CBS' highest-rated sitcoms, The Lucy Show, The Andy Griffith Show and Family Affair. It was also immediately followed, at 8:30 on NBC, by another superhero spoof, Captain Nice.

Before he had won the part, the actor cast as Mr. Terrific, Stephen Strimpell, had tested for the title role in Captain Nice, which ultimately went to William Daniels. Both characters, upon taking their "medication", turn, for a brief period, into caped crime fighters. Mr. Terrific's real identity is Stanley Beamish, a service-station owner who serves, as superhero, the "Bureau of Special Projects".

In the show's lengthy cartoon opening credits which explain, in song, the concept, Smith, appearing as a regular cast member in his first color series, receives, for the first time, credit as a member of the cast. Playing Harley Trent, an agent for the Bureau, Smith, whose rounded-face, stretched-mouth caricature overemphasizes his trademark goofy, bemused smile, is shown third, following Strimpell and Dick Gautier as Hal, Beamish's best friend. Mr. Terrific premiered the first of its 17 episodes the same day as Captain Nice, January 17, 1967 and presented its final repeat just over seven months later, on August 28.

The Doris Day Show and retirement in 1976

Two more years of guest appearances followed, with Paul Smith eventually cast in The Doris Day Show, his final, and longest-running, sitcom, seen, as in the case of his two previous shows, Monday nights on CBS. The actress-singer had just completed what turned out to be her last theatrical feature, With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), in which she plays a widowed mother of three sons. With the film set for release in August, she started filming episodes for her only network TV series, due to debut in September, playing Doris Martin, the widowed mother of two sons.

The first season had her living with the boys on her father's ranch but, starting with the second season in September 1969, the Tuesday night series moved to Monday and changed the setting, with Doris now commuting from Mill Valley to San Francisco, having found work as a secretary at a magazine called Today's World. Among the publication's staff is associate editor Ron Harvey, played by Paul Smith. During the second season, the opening credits showed, at the office, Doris' co-workers "McLean Stevenson as Mr. Nicholson and Rose Marie as Myrna", playing the editor and the wisecracking secretary. By the third season, however, as Doris and her sons moved away from the ranch to live in San Francisco, those credits reflected Paul Smith's increased importance on the series, indicated by the addition of his live image in third place, after Doris Day and Rose Marie, with McLean Stevenson now shown in fourth place.

Having been a regular for two seasons on The Doris Day Show, Paul Smith and all other supporting cast members were replaced with a new cast. For the show's last two seasons (1971–73), Doris Day was still named "Doris Martin", but was rebranded as a swinging single with no family, still at the same-named Today's World, but upgraded to associate editor, with a new set of co-workers. After departing Doris Day in 1971, in his last five years in front of the cameras, Smith had small roles in a couple of made-for-TV movies and one theatrical feature (1972's Now You See Him, Now You Don't). Of his nine appearances on Bewitched, five were in the 1970s — two in 1970, two in 1971 and one in 1972.

There were also five appearances on segments of the ABC comedy anthology series Love, American Style, one in 1969, two in 1971, one in 1972 and one in 1973, in which he was billed as A. Paul Smith. His sole 1974 credit is a guest shot on ABC's police drama The Rookies, while in 1975, he was seen in two: an episode of ABC's prison-set sitcom On the Rocks (an Americanized version of the British series Porridge), along with an installment of the NBC law enforcement anthology drama Police Story. His final on-camera role was in "Mr. Mephisto", the second episode (broadcast September 18, 1976) of the Saturday morning live action children's series Monster Squad, playing "Officer McMacMac".

Death announcement and family

In November 2014, the Internet Movie Database revised its entry for Paul Smith to state that his death which, up to that point, was not indicated, had occurred almost nine years earlier, on March 3, 2006. IMDb reported that he had died in North Hollywood, but no other supporting evidence, such as obituaries or memorials was specified. Based on the foregoing, the closest result at Social Security Death Index is for Arthur Smith (July 17, 1929 – March 3, 2006).

An April 1970 column by UPI entertainment industry writer Vernon Scott was devoted to Smith, with Scott describing Smith's home life during the time he was about to start filming episodes for his second season as a regular on The Doris Day Show. Scott also mentioned that Smith was divorced and had custody of his 11-year-old son Neil with whom he was sharing a small apartment in the San Fernando Valley.

Other actors named Paul Smith

Smith's credits have been frequently commingled with those of two other American performers — cowboy musician Paul "Clem" Smith who made unbilled appearances in seven western films between 1946 and 1948, and a later actor (1960s to 1990s) whose name appeared on many occasions in credit listings as Paul Smith — as well as with credits of the 1980s and early 1990s actor (born 1968) who, during his teens and early twenties, while appearing in a number of TV series and a few feature films in his native Australia, was billed as Paul Smith.

The American actor whose career under the name Paul Smith lasted from the 1960 to the 1990s, was born in 1936 and died in 2012. Distinctive for his imposing size and hulking, occasionally bearded persona, he began acting in 1960, but the great majority of his credits are from the 1970s and 1980s, with a few stretching into the 1990s (billed as "Paul Smith" in his final credit, 1999's D.R.E.A.M. Team). Although on at least one occasion (in 1963) he was billed as P. L. Smith and on at least three occasions (in 1979) as Paul Lawrence Smith, his most frequent billing has been alternatively Paul L. Smith or, simply, Paul Smith (billed as "Paul Smith" in what may be his best known role, that of the brutal Turkish prison guard, Hamidou, in the 1978 cult film Midnight Express).

Some film and television credits from the late 1960s and early-mid 1970s, in which he was billed as "Paul Smith", overlap those of the subject of this article, for whom the website AllMovie has no listing and assigns all of his film credits (as well as individual television episodes of series such as Bewitched and The Doris Day Show) to Paul L. Smith. Other filmographies, including those in American Film Institute Catalog and Turner Classic Movies also feature Paul Smith filmographies with incorrect attribution.

Working in Italy, during the mid-1970s, Paul L. Smith co-starred in a series of five action films which traded on his resemblance to big, burly, bearded Bud Spencer who, at the time, starred and co-starred in a continuing series of European action films, but when the American distributor of one such film with Smith decided to market it through the replacement of Smith's name with "Bob Spencer", Smith sued in 1980, successfully arguing that "the only thing an actor has is his name and if that's taken away, he has nothing".