Loring Smith

Loring B. Smith (November 18, 1890—July 8, 1981) was an American stage, film, radio and television actor, frequently of broadly comic and gregarious characters who enjoyed a 65-year career in every aspect of the entertainment business.

A native of Stratford, Connecticut, Smith left doubt as to the year of his birth. Most of the earliest sources list 1890, by the 1940s, it was 1895, and by the 1950s, the year became 1900. He does, however, have vaudeville and theatrical credits reaching back to the 1910s. During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, he played hundreds of characters in radio drama, comedy and variety. He also intermittently appeared in films, playing supporting parts in 1941's Keep 'Em Flying, with Abbott and Costello and Shadow of the Thin Man, fourth in the William Powell–Myrna Loy series of Nick and Nora Charles mysteries. Over the following twenty-six years he was seen in nine others, including a cameo in Orson Welles' 1958 Touch of Evil as the driver of a car at a police check point, usually playing his patented persona of a blustery, equivocating businessman or politician.

At the age of 50, he became a Broadway actor, appearing in twelve productions between November 1940 and March 1964. In most of those, he was, as usual, billed as "Senator" or "Mayor". While the majority of his assignments, placed him in supporting roles, he was given a co-starring billing in the comedy Be Your Age, with Conrad Nagel. Also in the cast was 17-year-old Lee Remick. Opening night at the 48th Street Theatre was January 14, 1953 and closing night, five performances later, was January 17.

His most memorable Broadway role came nearly three years later when he portrayed Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, with Ruth Gordon as Dolly, Arthur Hill as Cornelius and Robert Morse as Barnaby. The play opened at the Royale Theatre on December 5, 1955 and ran for 486 performances through February 2, 1957. The 1958 film version starred Shirley Booth as Dolly, Anthony Perkins as Cornelius and Robert Morse retained as Barnaby. Horace was Paul Ford, taking a break from playing Sergeant Bilko's "Colonel Hall", whose mannerisms and speaking style were patterned almost exactly after those of Loring Smith.

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