A Long‑Running Actor’s Final Curtain

William Smithers, who spent nearly five decades on stage and screen, passed away at 98 in Santa Barbara. He first stepped onto Broadway in the early 1950s, playing Tybalt opposite Olivia de Havilland. Later he joined the Actors Studio and moved into television, appearing in 50 episodes of “Dallas” during the 1980s. Before that he had a strong presence on soap operas, starring in “Peyton Place” and “Guiding Light, ” and made guest spots on shows such as “Star Trek, ” “Ironside, ” and “Hunter. ” His film work began with a role in 1956’s “Attack” and included a police captain part in the 1972 movie “Trouble Man. ”Smithers kept acting into the mid‑1990s, even showing up in a 1994 episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger. ” Beyond acting, he was involved in a landmark lawsuit against MGM while playing Anderson Gault on “Executive Suite. ” The dispute centered on a contract that limited how much other cast members could be paid. Smithers claimed an executive threatened to blacklist him, yet he pressed the case and won. The decision was later appealed up to the California Supreme Court and is now studied in entertainment‑law classes. After a long career, he settled with his wife, writer and acting teacher S. Loraine Hull, in Santa Barbara until her passing in 2022.