Kent Smith

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.

Known For

James Simpson

The Crooked Hearts

Peter Keating

The Fountainhead

Oliver Reed

Cat People

Jeffrey Stewart

Party Girl

Dr. Parry

The Spiral Staircase

Dr. Richard Talbot

Nora Prentiss

Warren Packer

The Female Instinct

Gen. Webster

Sayonara

Oliver 'Ollie' Reed

The Curse of the Cat People

Dr. Thorne

Die Sister, Die!

Martin Blackford

The Damned Don't Cry

District Attorney Tom Paine

The Night Stalker

Attorney (uncredited)

Back Door to Heaven

Paul Martin

This Land Is Mine

David Cummins

This Side of the Law

Secretary of the Air Force

Moon Pilot

Robert Dodd

The Judge and Jake Wyler

Dr. Pete Graham

The Mugger

Secretary of War

A Distant Trumpet

Raymond

How Awful About Allan

Andrew Oxley

Death of a Gunfighter

Dr. Fain

Susan Slade

Harry Gordon

Games

Danny Coates

Youth Runs Wild

Stanley Baxter

Strangers When We Meet

Bill Fergunson

Lost Horizon

Professor Nichols

Hitler's Children

Quanah Parker

Comanche

Paul Winter Sr.

Youngblood Hawke

Woode Swift

The Garden Murder Case

Akamai Barnes

Kona Coast

Frank Lucas

The Cat Creature

Capt. Reining - American Working for the Nazis

Resisting Enemy Interrogation

Francis Fairon

This Earth Is Mine

Kenneth Bartlett

The Voice of the Turtle

Dr. Edward Laurent

Probe

Brig. Gen. Charles Lane

Imitation General

Dr. Shoemaker

The Young Lovers

Gus Iverson

The Last Child

John Rogers

Paula

Oliver Parmalee

A Covenant with Death

John Hill

Three Russian Girls

Hoopendecker

Magic Town

Uncle George Clancy

The Trouble with Angels

Mr. Patterson

The Affair

Cyril Lounsberry

The Badlanders

Lewis H. Wengler

My Foolish Heart

Mr. Eversley

Assignment to Kill

Gen. Enright

The Disappearance of Flight 412

Paul Kimmel

The Money Jungle

Simon Isham

Another Part of the Forest

Gates Trimble Pomfret

Forever and a Day

Father Keating

Pete 'n' Tillie

General

The Balcony

Kaverley

The Games

Captain A. Edwards

Three Cadets

Okay for Sound

Instructor Lieutenant

Your Next Job

Briefing Colonel

Boeing B-29 Superfortress Bomb Loading Procedures

Professor Fritz Bhaer

Little Women: Jo's Story

Narrator

Design for Death

Narrator

Dental Health