Ray Smith was a Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 who notably played the tough-talking police chief, Detective Superintendent Gordon Spikings, in the television series, Dempsey & Makepeace

Dempsey & Makepeace

Dempsey & Makepeace is a British television crime drama made by London Weekend Television for ITV, created and produced by Ranald Graham...

.

Early life

Smith was born in Trealaw

Trealaw

Trealaw is the longest village in the Rhondda Valley, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales.Trealaw stretches over two miles from the junction of Cemetery Road and Brithweunydd Road in the east, to the junction of Ynyscynon Road and Partridge Road to the northwest....

 in the Rhondda Valley

Rhondda

Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...

 but lived most of his adult life in Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys

Dinas Powys is a large village and a community in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales which takes its name from the Dinas Powys hillfort that dates from the Iron Age...

. He became interested in acting while at school and was determined not to become a miner

Miner

A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....

 like his father who had been killed in a pit accident when Smith was only three years old. After leaving school he became a builder's labourer and, after national service in the Army, obtained an acting role at The Prince of Wales Theatre in Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

. He then joined the Swansea Grand Theatre

Swansea Grand Theatre

The Grand Theatre is a performing arts venue in the centre of Swansea, Wales. The theatre stages plays, pantomimes and touring theatrical acts visiting Swansea. The Grand Theatre is the base for the UK's only Russian ballet company, the Swansea Ballet Russe....

 as an assistant stage manager.

After moving to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Smith spent a year unemployed, before landing a part in a play about a Hungarian uprising. The acting jobs then followed thick and fast, but it was to be in television that he would make his mark.

Career

Smith made his TV debut in Shadows of Heroes in 1959, and appearances in series such as Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

 and A Family at War

A Family At War

A Family At War is a British drama series that aired on ITV from 1970 to 1972. It was created by John Finch and made by Granada Television for ITV. The director was David Giles....

 made him known to the public. He also appeared as Detective Insp. Firbank in Public Eye, which started in 1971. Two years later came one of his most famous roles, as George Barraclough in Sam one of Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

's northern drama series. The programme featured Mark McManus

Mark McManus

Mark McManus was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of Detective Chief Inspector Jim Taggart in the long-running ITV television series Taggart for eleven years until his death.-Career:...

 in the leading role of Sam.

He had a busy and successful stage career in addition to British film and TV roles before achieving celebrity through the Spikings character.

Later years

Ray Smith died at the age of 55 in Llandough Hospital

Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is a National Health Board in Wales. It came into being on 1 October 2009 through the amalgamation of three NHS organisations in the Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan area...

 after a major heart attack. He had been shooting one of the last scenes in the television adaptation of Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

' novel The Old Devils. Taken ill on location in Newport Ray was driven to hospital but checked himself out after a few hours because he did not want to hold up the production. Ironically the scenes that were being shot in Newport involved the death of Amis' main character Alun Weaver (played by John Stride).

Ray Smith died before the series was shown on BBC2. An onscreen credit by director Tristram Powell, producer Adrian Mourby and writer Andrew Davies dedicated the series to Ray Smith. This final performance as Charlie, the good-hearted alcoholic sage, won him a posthumous BAFTA Cymru Award (Best Actor) in 1992.

His son was the musician Huw Justin Smith, a.k.a. Pepsi Tate

Pepsi Tate

Pepsi Tate was the bass guitarist of Welsh Glam Metal band Tigertailz who made the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart in the early 1990s...

.

TV roles and filmography

• Nick of the River (1959)

• The House under the Water (1960)

• Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1960) ("Candidate for Murder")

• The Terrorists (1961)

• Ben Casey (1962)

• No Hiding Place (1960–1963) (2 episodes)

• The painted smile (1962)

• Mystery Submarine
  Mystery Submarine (1963 film)
  Mystery Submarine is a 1963 British war film directed by C.M. Pennington-Richards and starring Edward Judd, James Robertson Justice and Laurence Payne...
  
   (1963)

• Suspense (1963)

• Murder Can Be Deadly (1963)

• The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling (1964)

• Ring out an Alibi (1964, TV mini series)

• Tomorrow at Ten (1964)

• Moulded in Earth (1965) (TV mini series)

• Z-Cars (1965–1970) (4 appearances)

• Candidate for Murder (1966)

• Softly Softly (1966–1967) (4 episodes)

• Callan (TV series, 1967–1972)

• The Informer (1967)

• The Wednesday Play (1968) ("Mrs Lawrence will look after it")

• Half Hour Story (1968) (Stella)

• Company of Five (6 part series, including Shaggy Dog
  Shaggy Dog (play)
  Shaggy Dog, broadcast by ITV on 10 November 1968, is a black and white television play by Dennis Potter written for the London Weekend Television anthology series The Company of Five, specifically a group of five actors.-Synopsis:...
  
  , a Dennis Potter
  Dennis Potter
  Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
  
   play, 1968))

• Special Branch
  Special Branch (TV series)
  Special Branch is a British television series made by Thames Television for ITV and shown between 1969 and 1974. A police drama series, the action was centred on members of the Special Branch anti-espionage and anti-terrorist department of the London Metropolitan Police.The first two series were...
  
   (1969)

• Detectives (1969)

• Saturday Night Theatre (1969) (Bangelstein's Boys)

• A Family at War (TV serial, 1970)

• Shadows of Fear (1970–1971)

• Man at the Top (1971)

• Public Eye (TV series, 1971-1975)

• Made (1972)

• Country Matters (1972)

• Jackanory (24 appearances, 1972 - 1985)

• Colditz (1972)

• The New Adventures of Black Beauty (1972)

• New Scotland Yard (TV series, 1972-1974)

• Under Milk Wood (1973)

• The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1973)

• Sam (TV series, 1973-1975)

• The Main Chance (1975)

• Thriller (1975)

• Crown Court (1975)

• The Next Voice You See (TV movie, 1975)

• Look Back in Darkness (TV movie, 1975)

• Madame Bovary (TV serial, 1975)

• The Hanged Man (TV series, 1975)

• How Green was my Valley (1975)

• Hunter's Walk (TV series, 1973–1976)

• Operation Daybreak
  Operation Daybreak
  Operation Daybreak is a 1975 World War II film based on the true story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague - starring Anthony Andrews, Timothy Bottoms and Martin Shaw. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert and shot mostly on location in Prague. It was adapted from the book Seven Men...
  
   (1976)

• Bill Brand (1976)

• King Lear (1976)

• Little Lord Fauntleroy (1976)

• Rogue Male (TV movie, 1976)

• 1990 (episode "Health Farm", 1977)

• Play for Today (2 episodes 1977 and 1980)

• The Sailor's Return (1978)

• The Mill on the Floss (TV serial, 1978)

• The Hills of Heaven (TV serial, 1978)

• Enemy at the Door (1978)

• Target (1 episode, 1978)

• The Beast (TV special, 1979)

• Juliet Bravo (1 Episode, 1980)

• Masada (TV mini series, 1981)

• The life and times of David Lloyd George (1981)

• Plays for Pleasure (episode "Like I've never been gone", 1981)

• Maybury (1983)

• We'll Meet Again (TV series, 1982)

• The Citadel (TV movie, 1983)

• Struggle (TV series, 1983)

• Shades of Darkness ("Bewitched" 1983)

• Dempsey & Makepeace (30 episodes, 1985-1986)

• King Lear (1987)

• Three for the Road (1987)

• The District Nurse (episode "Bedside Manners" 1987)

• The Old Devils (TV serial, 1992)

External links