Kent Smith
Acting · Production
Born March 19, 1907, New York City, New York, USA
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
- 1982Taking Tiger Mountain — Producer
- 1978Die Sister, Die! — Dr. Thorne
- Once an Eagle — Gen. Jacklyn
- Wonder Woman — Chief Justice Brown
- 1974The Disappearance of Flight 412 — Gen. Enright
- 1973Lost Horizon — Bill Fergunson
- 1973The Affair — Mr. Patterson
- 1973The Cat Creature — Frank Lucas
- 1972Another Part of the Forest — Simon Isham
- Delphi Bureau — Prescott
- 1972Pete 'n' Tillie — Father Keating
- 1972Probe — Dr. Edward Laurent
- 1972The Crooked Hearts — James Simpson
- 1972The Female Instinct — Warren Packer
- 1972The Judge and Jake Wyler — Robert Dodd
- 1972The Night Stalker — District Attorney Tom Paine
- The Streets of San Francisco
- Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law — Keats
- 1971The Last Child — Gus Iverson
- 1970How Awful About Allan — Raymond
- Night Gallery — Doctor, Bennett
- 1970The Games — Kaverley
- 1969Death of a Gunfighter — Andrew Oxley
- 1968Assignment to Kill — Mr. Eversley
- 1968Kona Coast — Akamai Barnes
- 1967A Covenant with Death — Oliver Parmalee
- 1967Games — Harry Gordon
- The Invaders — Stan Arthur, Edgar Scoville
- 1967The Money Jungle — Paul Kimmel
- Felony Squad
- Mission: Impossible — Senator William Townsend
- 1966The Trouble with Angels — Uncle George Clancy
- The F.B.I. — US Attorney Leonard Vanatter, Wendell Price, Commodore Coldwell, Elwood Hayes
- The Wild Wild West — Governor Winston E. Brubaker
- 1964A Distant Trumpet — Secretary of War
- Daniel Boone — General Hugh Scott
- Profiles in Courage — Charles Evans Hughes
- The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — Mr. Macy
- 1964The Young Lovers — Dr. Shoemaker
- 1964Youngblood Hawke — Paul Winter Sr.
- Arrest and Trial
- 1963The Balcony — General
- The Great Adventure — Gen. Nelson Miles, William Carroll, Grymes
- The Outer Limits — Dr. Block, Aabel
- Going My Way
- 1962Moon Pilot — Secretary of the Air Force
- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour — Mr. Benner, Jerry O'Hara, Dr. Sam Adamson
- The Beverly Hillbillies — Clifton Cavanaugh
- Cain's Hundred — Charles Dennis
- 1961Susan Slade — Dr. Fain
- The Defenders — Dwight Harkavy
- Checkmate — Ainslee
- 1960Strangers When We Meet — Stanley Baxter
- The Aquanauts — George
- The Barbara Stanwyck Show — Dexter Willis
- The Roaring 20's
- Adventures in Paradise — Michael Legrange, Crandall
- Rawhide
- 1959This Earth Is Mine — Francis Fairon
- 77 Sunset Strip — Robert Vincent
- Bronco
- 1958Imitation General — Brig. Gen. Charles Lane
- Lawman — Kent Smith
- Naked City — George Blake
- 1958Party Girl — Jeffrey Stewart
- 1958The Badlanders — Cyril Lounsberry
- 1958The Mugger — Dr. Pete Graham
- Have Gun, Will Travel — Avery Coombs
- M Squad — Howard Meston
- Perry Mason — Dr. Arthur Younger, Dr. Curtis Metcalfe
- 1957Sayonara — Gen. Webster
- Suspicion — Dr. Jonathan Michel, the Psychiatrist
- Wagon Train — Prof. Paul Owens
- 1956Comanche — Quanah Parker
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Gilbert Hughes
- Crossroads
- Gunsmoke — Bealton, Dakota
- Matinee Theater
- The Millionaire — Bill Franklin
- 1954King Richard II — Bolingbroke
- General Electric Theater — Dr. Jonathan Michael
- Omnibus — Sergius Saranoff
- 1952Paula — John Rogers
- Hallmark Hall of Fame — Bolingbroke
- 1950Little Women: Jo's Story — Professor Fritz Bhaer
- Lux Video Theatre — David Barlow, Steven, at 48, Steve Ferris
- 1950My Foolish Heart — Lewis H. Wengler
- Robert Montgomery Presents — Prince Albert
- 1950The Damned Don't Cry — Martin Blackford
- 1950This Side of the Law — David Cummins
- Lights Out
- 1949The Fountainhead — Peter Keating
- 1948Design for Death — Narrator
- Studio One — Friedrich Bhaer
- The Philco Television Playhouse — John Wilkes Booth
- 1947Magic Town — Hoopendecker
- 1947Nora Prentiss — Dr. Richard Talbot
- 1947The Voice of the Turtle — Kenneth Bartlett
- 1946Okay for Sound
- 1946The Spiral Staircase — Dr. Parry
- 1945Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bomb Loading Procedures — Briefing Colonel
- 1945Your Next Job — Instructor Lieutenant
- 1944Resisting Enemy Interrogation — Capt. Reining - American Working for the Nazis
- 1944The Curse of the Cat People — Oliver 'Ollie' Reed
- 1944Youth Runs Wild — Danny Coates
- 1943Dental Health — Narrator
- 1943Forever and a Day — Gates Trimble Pomfret
- 1943Hitler's Children — Professor Nichols
- 1943This Land Is Mine — Paul Martin
- 1943Three Cadets — Captain A. Edwards
- 1943Three Russian Girls — John Hill
- 1942Cat People — Oliver Reed
- 1939Back Door to Heaven — Attorney (uncredited)
- 1936The Garden Murder Case — Woode Swift