Lane Smith never was able to land the leading role that established him as a star, but his supporting actor roles were memorable and showed the skills that could have made him a star if the right break came along.
The earliest role that I remember seeing Smith in was 1977's "Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" in which as a police officer, Smith finds the Bears team without a chaperone all in a single hotel room.
Smith's character forces "Kelly Leak " to find the chaperone that he knows isn't there and when Kelly returns with "Mike Leak" played by noted gold shill William DeVane, Smith allows everything to stand and is offered tickets to the game by DeVane.
The other memorable portion of that role for Smith is never explained in the film as Smith is shown several times in the stands with both arms around a beautiful woman.
I'm willing to wager the explanation to that wound up on the cutting room floor.
Smith's starring role as Richard Nixon in the 1989 television movie "The Final Days" was well regarded by critics and I wonder why he didn't receive other opportunities as in a starring role.
Smith worked often in films and television through the 80s, most notably to me as the Russian collaborator mayor in Red Dawn, but Smith's real peak came in the 90s when he gained the role of "Perry White" the crusty editor of the Daily Planet on the Superman vehicle "Lois and Clark".
I didn't watch that very often, but Smith landed five terrific supporting roles in films in the downtime from "Lois and Clark" which ran from 1993-1997.
In 1992-94, those five supporting roles showed the abilities of Lane Smith and wear well if you see them today.
1992 saw Smith as the district attorney in the Deep South opposing Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny", corrupt congressman "Dick Dodge" in Eddie Murphy's "The Distinguished Gentleman" (An underrated film that few mention today), and what might be his most famous role- "Coach Jack Reilly" in the original "Mighty Ducks".
Lane Smith completely nailed the role of the successful youth sports coach ( Smith as Reilly reminded me of one person that I knew during my little league years, even though I never coached against him- the similarities are striking) because everyone that has been involved in youth sports knows "That Guy".
Smith's pride in his program's success, yet arrogant attitude made his character the bad guy in Ducks, but I don't see it completely that way.
"Jack Reilly" may have been a little overzealous "It's not worth winning if you can't win big!", but his seriousness of coaching games and developing players is something that is derided at times in society.
Still, Smith made Reilly relatable to the person watching the film and in my opinion, quietly steals the film to the adult viewer.
Teaching his kids to "Go for the W", Smith teaches his team to strive for the best and to do it through the team system and hard work.
In this clip below, Smith looks at a second-place banner caused by "Gordon Bombay's" missed penalty shot with pain from remembering.
I get it- because I have similar memories.
I coached in a playoff mini-series, best of three, down one game to none in game two and a player (I'm not naming him) that was catching for our team had struggled with pop-ups all season because he wouldn't listen on how to secure them no matter how many times I showed him what to do.
With a slim lead in the final inning, an easy foul should have retired one of the opponent's best hitters, but the catcher loaded out of his crouch and tried to squeeze the ball with the mitt instead of covering up with two hands.
Catchers mitt can be hard to squeeze with one hand and it's easy to have the baseball pop out of them, so covering with the other hand for insurance can go a long way in securing the ball.
Of course, the ball is dropped and a few batters later, the lead, the game, and the series were lost.
I've seen the player a few times in the ensuing twenty years and every time I see him, I can't help but remember that pop-up.
Some of it is the loss of course, but some of it is that I just never was able to get my point through with the player and that's the worst part of all.
Smith added two other memorable roles in 1993 and 1994, first performing as the angry and disappointed father in law in Pauly Shore's "Son in Law".
I can feel his pain there, who would want Pauly Shore for a son in law?!
Smith also was cast as the New York Yankees general manager in the Albert Brooks film "The Scout" and had several scenes with noted thespian George Steinbrenner.
Smith continued to work through the nineties with one notable role as "Emmitt Seaborn", a fictional newsman in the Tom Hanks/HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon".
That ranks at the top of my favorite limited series and Seaborn was composited from various anchormen/reporters that covered the Apollo era, so Smith was seen in most episodes.
Smith continued acting on television including some voice work on "King of the Hill" as "Charlie Fortner", the president of the Texas Propane Association.
Lane Smith was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 2004 and passed away the following year at the age of 69.
An underrated character actor and the one responsible for one of my all-time favorite characters, we welcome Lane Smith to the Forgotten Superstars universe, where he'll always be remembered.
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