Roger Smith (actor)

Smith died at age 84 on June 4, 2017, at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, of complications from myasthenia gravis. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

His condition went into remission in 1985. Following his retirement from performing, he managed his wife's career and produced her popular Las Vegas stage shows. In an interview with the New York Post, Ann-Margret said that he had Parkinson's disease. He appeared rarely on television after his health deteriorated, although he participated on This Is Your Life, when host Ralph Edwards devoted an episode to Ann-Margret. In addition to the appearances credited below, Smith appeared on several game shows.

His health declined, and in 1980, according to wife Ann-Margret, he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease.

He produced two films with Allan Carr, The First Time (1969) and C.C. and Company (1970), which he also wrote.

He married Ann-Margret on May 8, 1967. He became her manager, but he largely retired due to his myasthenia gravis.

Before he obtained a role in another television series, Smith said he had to "fight my way back from a point where I had almost decided to give up acting." He then starred as Lt. Douglas Roberts in the Warner Bros. Television series Mister Roberts, a comedy-drama series on NBC-TV in 1965–1966.

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.

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 in Man of a Thousand Faces.

Smith married twice. His first wife (1956–1965) was Australian-born actress Victoria Shaw with whom he had three children: daughter Tracey (b. 1957), and sons Jordan (b. 1958) and Dallas (b. 1961). Smith and Shaw divorced in 1965.

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.