Roger Smith

Roger LaVerne Smith (December 18, 1932 – June 4, 2017) was an American television and film actor, producer, and screenwriter. He starred in the television detective series 77 Sunset Strip and in the comedy series Mister Roberts. Smith went on to manage the career of Ann-Margret, his wife of 50 years. Early life Smith was born in South Gate, California, the son of Leone Irene (née Adams) and Dallas Leone Smith. When he was six, his parents enrolled him into a stage school, where he took singing, dancing, and elocution lessons. He grew up in Nogales, Arizona, where his family moved when he was 12. He was educated at the University of Arizona at Tucson on a football scholarship. He won several amateur talent prizes as a singer and guitarist. Career Smith served with the Naval Reserve and was stationed in Hawaii with the Fleet All-Weather Training Unit-Pacific, a flight-training unit near Honolulu. After a chance meeting with actor James Cagney, he was encouraged to try a career in Hollywood. (Cagney had also encouraged other young actors for whom he found roles in two 1956 films.) He later played Cagney's character's son, Lon Chaney Jr. in Man of a Thousand Faces. Smith signed with Columbia Pictures in 1957 and made several films, then moved to Warner Bros. in 1958. On April 16, 1958, Smith appeared with Charles Bickford in "The Daniel Barrister Story" on NBC's Wagon Train. His greatest film exposure was the role of the adult Patrick Dennis in Auntie Mame, with Rosalind Russell.