William Smithers, the veteran character actor best known for playing the ruthless oilman Jeremy Wendell on the CBS primetime soap Dallas, has died at the age of 98. His death was reported by the Santa Barbara Independent. He lived in Santa Barbara.
Smithers joined Dallas in 1981 during its fourth season, playing Wendell, chairman of WestStar Oil. Over a 50-episode run through 1989, his character made the notoriously cutthroat J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, look restrained by comparison.
Working with Hagman was never easy, by design. "It was always a challenge because [their characters] were always competitors because of the scripts," Smithers said. "Larry was a strong actor. I feel like I had to be at the top of my game when I was working with him. It was very stimulating."
Smithers was a member of The Actors Studio and began his career on stage. He and Olivia de Havilland made their Broadway debuts together in a 1951 production of Romeo and Juliet. He was born Marion Wilkinson Smithers Jr. in Richmond, Virginia, on July 10, 1927.
On film, Smithers played a principled infantry officer in Robert Aldrich's Attack in 1956, then went on to appear in Trouble Man, Scorpio, and Papillon, all released in the early 1970s. In Papillon, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, he played the unbending Warden Barrot opposite Steve McQueen.
His character's dialogue in that film was blunt and memorable. "The rule here is total silence," Barrot tells McQueen's imprisoned character. "We make no pretense of rehabilitation here. We're not priests, we're processors. A meat-packer processes live animals into edible ones. We process dangerous men into harmless ones. This we accomplish by breaking you. Breaking you physically, spiritually and here [pointing to his head]. Strange things happen to the head here. Put all hope out of your mind and masturbate as little as possible. It drains the strength."
The role left a mark on pop culture. The Hollywood Reporter noted that the warden character played by André Gregory in the 1993 Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes film Demolition Man was named William Smithers, apparently as a tribute.
Earlier in his television career, Smithers had portrayed Peyton Mill owner David Schuster on ABC's Peyton Place from 1965 to 1966, which was television's first primetime soap. He also guest-starred on the original Star Trek as Captain R.M. Merik in the episode "Bread and Circuses," which premiered in March 1968.
Off screen, Smithers fought and won a significant legal battle. In 1976, while starring on the CBS drama Executive Suite, he sued MGM, claiming the studio had violated a contract provision stating that no other cast member could receive more money or better billing than he did, with three named exceptions. An MGM executive allegedly threatened to blacklist him if he pursued the case, but Smithers pressed forward. A jury and then the California Supreme Court ruled in his favor. "We won it big," he said. The case, Smithers vs. MGM, is now taught in entertainment law courses.
