LOS ANGELES — William Smith, the rugged actor who starred on “Laredo” and “Rich Man, Poor Man” and had memorable movie brawls with Rod Taylor and Clint Eastwood, died Monday, his wife said. He was 88.
Smith died Monday at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, Joanne Cervelli Smith told The Hollywood Reporter. She did not want to reveal the cause of death.
RIP William Smith https://t.co/8R6c4L8cjN
— john kreng (@jkreng) July 10, 2021
Smith had 289 movie and television credits during his career, according to IMDb.com.
Smith starred as gunfighter-turned-Texas Ranger Joe Riley on “Laredo” during the Western’s two-season run on NBC (1965-67). He also played Detective James “Kimo” Carew in the final season of the original “Hawaii Five-O” crime drama in 1979-80.
Smith may be best known for his portrayal as hired thug Anthony Falconetti in the 1976 television miniseries, “Rich Man, Poor Man.”
In the 1970 film, “Darker Than Amber,” Smith had a memorable brawl with Taylor that is regarded as one of Hollywood’s most realistic fights. Taylor broke three of Smith’s ribs and Smith smashed Taylor’s nose during the scene, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Fight choreography and staging went out the window when Rod decided to really hit me,” Smith said in a 2010 interview. “And so the fight was on. That was a real fight with real blood and real broken bones. Rod is a skilled fighter and at the same time a real scrapper. Now that was a good fight!”
In 1980, Smith played bare-knuckle boxer Jack Wilson, who fought with Clint Eastwood in “Any Which Way You Can.”
The film’s trailer described the fight between Wilson and Philo Beddoe (Eastwood) as “the most knuckle-busting, gut-wrenching, brain-scrambling, butt-bruising, lip-splitting brawl of all time.”
“It has to be one of the longest two-man fights ever done on film without doubles,” Smith said in an interview for Louis Paul’s 2014 book, “Tales From the Cult Film Trenches.” “We shot it in Jackson, Wyoming, which is about 8,000 feet high in altitude, and I was smoking so hard at the time.”
Speaking of smoke, Smith was the last actor to portray the Marlboro Man in commercials before they were banned from television, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Smith was born on a cattle ranch in Columbia, Missouri, on March 24, 1933, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was an uncredited child extra as an 8-year-old on the set with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. in “The Ghost of Frankenstein” (1942) and had roles in “The Song of Bernadette” (1943), “Going My Way” (1944), “Meet Me in St. Louis” (1944) and “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” (1945).
Smith played Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father in 1982′s “Conan the Barbarian,” and a Soviet general in 1984′s “Red Dawn,” according to The Associated Press.
In addition to his wife of 31 years, Smith is survived by a son, William E. Smith III, and a daughter, Sherri Anne Cervelli, the AP reported.
©2021 Cox Media Group
