American character actor and producer/director. A third-generation Kansan, raised in Hutchinson, Kansas, Smith was the son of Delos V. Smith and Bessie Bloom. He was Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Kansas, participated in the first Round the World University Afloat, attended graduate school at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and College de France. He was involved in the performing arts throughout his life, first as impresario of the General Motors Symphony of the Air radio show from 1930-36, then as a singer in a multitude of opera companies. He acted, produced, and directed on Broadway and on the London stage, and appeared in a number of Hollywood films and television programs. Following his retirement in 1981, he returned to college in Hutchinson, Kansas, studying at Hutchinson Community College for much of the final two decades of his life. At his death, he had no immediate survivors.