Howard Smith (actor)
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Howard Irving Smith was an American character actor with a 50-year career in vaudeville, theatre, radio, films and television. In 1938, he performed in Orson Welles's short-lived stage production and once-lost film, Too Much Johnson, and in the celebrated radio production, "The War of the Worlds". He portrayed Charley in the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman and recreated the role in the 1951 film version. On television, Smith portrayed the gruff Harvey Griffin in the situation comedy, Hazel.
Howard Smith, Mary Wickes, Orson Welles, Virginia Nicolson, William Herz, Erskine Sanford, Eustace Wyatt and Joseph Cotten outside the Stony Creek Theatre during the two-week run of the Mercury Theatre stage production of Too Much Johnson (August 16–29, 1938)
The Mercury Theatre on the Air is a radio series of live radio dramas created and hosted by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with music composed or arranged by Bernard Herrmann. The series began July 11, 1938, as a sustaining program on the CBS Radio network, airing Mondays at 9 pm ET. On September 11, the show moved to Sundays at 8 pm.
Orson Welles (July 1938)
The company rehearses "Treasure Island", the second program in The Mercury Theatre on the Air series, presented July 18, 1938.
Orson Welles, arms upraised, directs a rehearsal of CBS Radio's The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Bernard Hermann conducts the CBS Radio orchestra; actors at the microphone include Ray Collins and Richard Wilson.