![]() Cagney was Chaney, while Smith played Chaney's son as a young man. When Smith's Navy service ended, he signed a contract with Columbia Pictures.Ĭagney recommended Smith for a role in "Man of a Thousand Faces," the 1957 film biography of silent star Lon Chaney. Cagney, who was there making a film, suggested that Smith might try for a film career. He served 2½ years in the Navy Reserve, and in Hawaii he sang at social events. When he was 12 the family moved to Nogales, Ariz., where he excelled in the high school acting club and football team. When he was 6, his parents enrolled him in a professional school in Hollywood where he learned singing and dancing. Smith was born in 1932, in South Gate, near Los Angeles. "But right now I still think it's impossible to be married to a successful actress and have your own career and have the marriage work." "I have this great dream that when Ann-Margret gets out of movies, she and I will co-star in a Broadway play," he told New York magazine in 1976. Critics praised her performance and she was nominated for an Oscar for supporting actress. She broke her sex kitten stereotype in dramatic fashion in 1971 when she appeared in Mike Nichols' "Carnal Knowledge" as the abused mistress of Jack Nicholson. I couldn't exist without a strong man."įor decades Smith guided Ann-Margret's career with great care. "Now in Roger I've found all the men I need rolled into one - a father, a friend, a lover, a manager, a businessman," she told writer Rex Reed in 1972. Actors Roger Smith, from left, Carolyn Komant and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., tune up for their parts in the TV series "77 Sunset Strip," in February 1961. They were married quietly in Las Vegas in 1967. Meanwhile he was dating Ann-Margret, the dynamic singer, dancer and actress of "Bye Bye Birdie," ''Viva Las Vegas" and other films. When he first gained fame, he had been married to a glamorous Australian actress, Victoria Shaw, with whom he had three children. Smith told the Los Angeles Times that the series aimed to show that private investigators were well-trained, serious men, and not the movie and TV stereotype with "dangling cigarettes and large chips on their shoulders." He was chosen for the part because "I don't look like a detective." "77 Sunset Strip" had been created by producer-writer Roy Huggins, who also created "Maverick," and it spawned a host of spinoffs and knockoffs, including "Hawaiian Eye," ''Surfside 6" and "Bourbon Street Beat." It made stars of both men and a teen heartthrob out of Edd Byrnes, who played a colorful parking lot attendant named Kookie. Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/Invision/APįrom 1958 to 1963, he co-starred with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Actor Roger Smith and wife Ann-Margret attend the world premiere of "Going in Style" in New York on March 30. He survived two serious illnesses to have a second career after "77 Sunset Strip" as manager of Ann-Margret, who was his second wife. The actor launched his career in the 1950s when James Cagney spotted him and recommended him for films.
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