Career
The gray-haired actor usually played studious and dignified types in films, such as doctors or butlers. Smith appeared in many black-and-white noirish films in supporting roles alongside more handsome and popular movie leads, such as John Garfield in Body and Soul (1947) and Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place (1950). He had a key role as a federal agent in 1947"s Ride the Pink Horse, starring and directed by Robert Montgomery.
Two of these films, In a Lonely Place and Ride a Pink Horse, were based on novels by Dorothy B. Hughes.
Smith was one of the victims of the Hollywood blacklist, which ended most of his film career in 1952. In 1957, he originated the role of Doc in the stage version of West Side Story.
Smith only returned occasionally to the film business, for example in an uncredited part in The Hustler. He also worked on television before retiring in 1967.
He died, aged 73, in Long Island, New York, from a heart attack.
Broken Dishes (1929) as Sam Green
The House of Connelly (1931) as Jesse Tate
Success Story (1932) as Marcus Turner
Night Over Taos as Captain Mumford
Awake and Sing! (1935) and (1939) as Myron Berger
Men in White (1933) as Mr. Hudson
Waiting Foreign Lefty (1935) as henchman
Golden Boy (1937) as Tokio
Rocket to the Moon (1938) as Phillip Cooper, Doctorate.D.S
West Side Story (1957) as Doc
All the Way Home (1960) as Father Jackson.