Walter Smith

Starting in the 1940s, Walter Smith's career evolved as Hollywood's mindset evolved. Like many African American actors Smith found his niche playing tribesmen from any region Hollywood could think of. It was during this period that Smith and other African Americana actors regularly worked in Tarzan and Bomba the Jungle Boy movies. By the 1950s, the demand for jungle based films had died down. Smith started to find work as porters, bell hops, dock workers, and various other depictions of low wag employees. He was constantly rewarded for his professionalism by being given silent bit roles in things like The Untouchables where they would give him character names or have him play a wait that would interact with the character but that wouldn't talk. Like many actors of his day, he made more money playing a waiter, than he would have ever done as an actual a waiter. The 1960s signified a turning point in his career because now African American's could regularly be seen as workman and as cops. He was so well liked on The Lucy Show that he was given a few credited roles as police officers. The continuing evaluation of the mindset of casting directors also allowed Smith and some others to start collecting paychecks in westerns. What used to be an odd site to see a black person in a western, now happened more and more. He even managed to appear a few episodes of The Wild Wild West. In the 1980s, Smith manage to because a regular townsman in the short lived western Bret Maverick where he actually learned how to ride a horse and could be regularly seen on horseback galloping through the streets. As time marched on, the now gray-haired Smith started to appear in wherever he could. The trouble was that the unique appearance that helped him appear as scores of waiters, bartenders, and other roles now limited him to more generic roles as courtroom spectators, pedestrians, and various other roles. Like most extras of the 1980s, Smith eventually retired as the work eventually dried up and more and more jobs became open to non-union members.