William Smith Passes.

[Tim Fortuna]

So many awesome roles, starting with The Ghost Of Frankenstein.
William Smith

[Heavy Metal Spike]

.

Darn it.

I used to go into Wikipedia and check every so often he was still with us (I knew he was getting up there).

He left us last Monday (July 5th) aged 88.

GENUINELY scared the heck out of me when I was a wee lad watching both seasons of "Rich Man Poor Man" (1976/1977) - my first experience with a really evil/psychotic bad guy.

He was great in "Any Which Way You Can" (1980), and (as Tim's pic shows) provided a couple of great opening scenes in the 1st Schwarzenegger Conan - "Conan The Barbarian" (1982) too.

Always looked like one of those fellas you would NOT want to mess with - and played the part VERY well.

Really colourful history & backstory if you do some digging.

RIP dude.

• • • • • • • • 

• • • 

• • • • • • • • • • 

.

[Tim Fortuna]

I always thought this was him in that old Wunderbar commercial.

[hellboy51]

Legendary tough guy. I was just watching his scenes in Any which way you can and Conan the other day. R.I.P.

[ShaneM]

He was a regular on Rockford Files too. Always played the heavy.

[Otto69]

I remember him in one of the first Rockford Files when Rockford set Smith up in the bathroom of a bus station and slugged him with a roll of quarters. Smith studied Kenpo with Ed Parker (who is shown in brief cameo when the bad guy calls Smiths character at the dojo) and that would make him a particularly dangerous guy to fight in real life.

His two favorite roles of mine were the Spetsnatz officer in Red Dawn, and of course as Conans dad "This, THIS you can trust."

[Heavy Metal Spike]

.

I watched "Any Which Way You Can" again last night in his honour. STILL a great movie.

.

[Todd P.]

Funny to me that Any Which Way You Can keeps coming up because last weekend I watched that movie for the first time in probably 40 years. I saw it many times on cable in the summer of 1981 (I think) and enjoyed it well enough, but hadn't seen it again until last weekend.

Honestly, as Eastwood efforts go, I don't think much of it overall. But William Smith was so good as the friendly antagonist that I've never forgotten it, and my recent viewing confirmed my enjoyment. It was a big surprise to me to see a couple of days later that he'd passed.

[temperflash]

I had wondered why Smith was cast as a Russian officer in the film Red Dawn, then I found out he was raised by his Russian grandmother and was fluent in Russian. So knowledgeable of Russian languages (they speak several, a French dialect being very common) he was assigned to electronic surveillance missions during the Korean War.

[belrog999]

And who can forget Invasion Of The Bee Girls?

[Tim Fortuna]

And who can forget Invasion Of The Bee Girls?

Forgot he was in that, now I can finally watch it. Watched Grave of the Vampire the other day.

[temperflash]

Watched Grave of the Vampire the other day.

I love that movie, Blade before there was Blade.