Lane Smith
Birth : 1936-04-29, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Death : 2005-06-13
History
Lane Smith was born in 1936 in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from the Leelanau School, a boarding school in Glen Arbor, Michigan, and spent one year boarding at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, before going off to study at the Actors Studio in the late 1950s and early 1960s along with Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino; he was recognized in their Hall of Fame. Smith served two years in the United States Army.
After graduating, Smith found steady work in New York theater before making his film debut in Maidstone in 1970. During the 1970s, he regularly made appearances in small film roles including Rooster Cogburn in 1975 and Network in 1976. In 1981, Smith appeared in the Sidney Lumet-directed film Prince of the City. He also acted on television, notably playing a United States Marine in Vietnam in the television miniseries A Rumor of War and in the 1980 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie Gideon's Trumpet starring Henry Fonda, José Ferrer and John Houseman. Smith is also credited for playing McMurphy 650 times in the 1971 Off-Broadway revival of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Smith made a major breakthrough in 1984 with significant roles in Red Dawn, Places in the Heart and the television series V. He also played on Quincy, M.E. in season 8, episode 7, "Science for Sale" as an oncologist searching for a cure to cancer. In 1989, Smith gained recognition for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in the docudrama The Final Days. Newsweek praised the performance, writing, "Smith] is such a good Nixon that his despair and sorrow at his predicament become simply overwhelming." Smith earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. He also appeared in the original Broadway stage production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross as James Lingk. He received a Drama Desk Award for his performance.
In 1990, Smith appeared in Air America playing a United States Senator, a role for which he was selected based on his resemblance to then-Minority Leader Bob Dole. Two years later, he played a small-town district attorney opposite Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny, followed by a role as Coach Jack Reilly in The Mighty Ducks. In 1993 Smith landed the role of Perry White in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which he played for four seasons until 1997. In 1994, he portrayed New York Yankees front officeman Ron in The Scout, alongside Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser. In 1998, Smith appeared in a major role as fictional television anchorman Emmett Seaborn in the HBO miniseries From The Earth to the Moon. His final film appearance was in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000).
Smith was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease) in April 2004. He died of the disease at his home in Northridge, California on June 13, 2005 at the age of 69. He was survived by his wife, Debbie Benedict Smith and his son Robert Smith.
We follow the career of failed filmmaker, Jeigh Pressley as he humorously drinks himself to death.
John Sullivan
Terrorists release a deadly biological-warfare virus in the United States.
A group of friends meet once a year for a weekend of partying and re
Grantland Rice
World War I has left golfer Rannulph Junuh a poker-playing alcoholic, his perfect swing gone. Now, however, he needs to get it back to play in a tournament to save the financially ravaged golf course of a long-ago sweetheart. Help arrives in the form of mysterious caddy Bagger Vance.
Reverend Jeremiah Brown
Two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution.
Steve Shaw
An intimate story of the enduring bond of friendship between two hard-living men, set against a sweeping backdrop: the American West, post-World War II, in its twilight. Pete and Big Boy are masters of the prairie, but ultimately face trickier terrain: the human heart.
Dr. Maddie
Young professionals Christopher and Melissa meet and fall hard for each other. As their attraction grows, it becomes apparent that in order for their relationship to succeed, they must overcome Christopher's dark secret involving his father, with the help of his best friend and a sharp-edged psychiatrist.
Senator Silverthorne
Matt and George investigate a series of strange occurrences involving newcomers, who are found to be programmed to carry out someone's dirty work. The method by which they are brainwashed dates back to the slave ship's rebellion group, the Udara, who, we discover, Susan was a part of. Susan and George's lives are further disrupted when Buck enrols in the police academy.
Ron Wilson
When his star recruit botches a Major League Baseball debut, humiliated talent scout, Al Percolo gets banished to rural Mexico, where he finds a potential gold mine in the arm of young phenom Steve Nebraska. Soon, the Bronx Bombers put a $55 million contract on the table—provided a psychiatrist can affirm Nebraska's mental stability.
Stephen Hahn
An explosives expert fleeing his past and a beautiful spy trading sex for secrets find themselves in love and fighting the spy ring out to kill them.
Walter Warner
Country girl Rebecca has spent most of her life on a farm in South Dakota, and, when she goes away to college in Los Angeles, Rebecca immediately feels out of place in the daunting urban setting. She is befriended by a savvy party animal named Crawl, who convinces the ambivalent Rebecca to stay in the city. When Thanksgiving break rolls around, Rebecca, no longer an innocent farm girl, invites Crawl back to South Dakota, where he pretends to be her fiancé.
Dick Dodge
A Florida con man uses the passing of the long time Congressman from his district who he just happens to share a name with, to get elected to his version of paradise, Congress, where the money flows from lobbyists. But soon he learns the nature of the game and decides to fight back the only way he knows how, with a con.
Jack Reilly
After reckless young lawyer Gordon Bombay gets arrested for drunk driving, he must coach a kids hockey team for his community service. Gordon has experience on the ice, but isn't eager to return to hockey, a point hit home by his tense dealings with his own former coach, Jack Reilly. The reluctant Gordon eventually grows to appreciate his team, which includes promising young Charlie Conway, and leads them to take on Reilly's tough players.
Mr. Fryman
A family falls victim to a scientific institute that removes memories and transfers them to a computer.
Jim Trotter III
Two carefree pals traveling through Alabama are mistakenly arrested, and charged with murder. Fortunately, one of them has a cousin who's a lawyer - Vincent Gambini, a former auto mechanic from Brooklyn who just passed his bar exam after his sixth try. When he arrives with his leather-clad girlfriend, to try his first case, it's a real shock - for him and the Deep South!
Martin Busey
A luxury home, a handsome husband and terrific children. But it all comes crashing down when she is accused of being a mastermind behind a brutal triple-homicide and is arrested and handcuffed in front of her own children. A gripping story of passion and betrayal as a woman fights to clear her name and avoid the death penalty for a crime she didn't commit.
Col. Blanchard
A man seeks revenge on the white supremacists acquitted in the murder of his son
Senator Davenport
Air America was the CIA's private airline operating in Laos during the Vietnam War, running anything and everything from soldiers to foodstuffs for local villagers. After losing his pilot's license, Billy Covington is recruited into it, and ends up in the middle of a bunch of lunatic pilots, gun-running by his friend Gene Ryack, and opium smuggling by his own superiors.
Larry Mulloy
A profile of the astronauts, crew, and civilians who were involved in the January 28, 1986 flight of the spaceship, Challenger, that resulted in its explosion upon takeoff. The center point of the film is the safety inspections and arguments surrounding the use of the o-rings that ultimately were blamed for the explosion.
Richard Nixon
The Final Days concerns itself with the final months of the Richard Nixon presidency.
Whitty
A police detective tracks a serial killer who is stalking young women on a beach front after each game that a baseball pitcher wins.
Dr. Butler
Woody Harrelson stars in the story of psychiatrist Lisa DaVito and her battle to save a tortured man whose past has turned him to violence. One tragic incident seals his fate and shakes Lisa's faith in her profession.
Warden Eaton Sharpe
After Charles Forsyth was sent to the electric chair for a crime he didn't commit, he forever haunts the prison where he was executed. Flash forward several years when the prison is reopened, under the control of its new warden Eaton Sharpe, a former security guard who framed Charlie. When prisoners are ordered to break down the wall to the execution room, they unknowingly release the angry spirit of Charles Forsyth, a powerful being distributing his murderous rage to all, leading up to the Warden himself.
Claude
A San Quentin inmate, sentenced to life without parole, writes a play that catches the interest of a reporter.
Sam
Sam Gavin decides to relocate his family from Houston, Texas to a sheep station in Australia to protect his eleven children from the "destructive influences" of modern American society. Because of business obligations, he fails to join them and, more or less, abandons his wife, Liz, to the hardships of her new surroundings. Mother and children are determined to make a go of it.
Britton
In 1940s Chicago, a young black man takes a job as a chauffeur to a white family, which takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills the teenage daughter of the couple and then tries to cover it up.
Anson Whitfield
London Bridge, London, England, 1888: Jack the Ripper dies in the Thames river. London Bridge, Lake Havasu, Arizona, 1985: the last original stone used to rebuild London Bridge is laid and all the city is happy...but then some strange murders start happening. Policeman Don Gregory has some suspects, but when he develops a theory that Jack the Ripper has been resurrected, no one believes him.
Albert Denby
In 1930s Texas, a widow and her family fight to save their home by harvesting cotton.
Mayor Bates
It is the dawn of World War III. In mid-western America, a group of teenagers band together to defend their town—and their country—from invading Soviet forces.
Cmdr. Markel
A Navy surgeon and a nurse fall in love while serving in Vietnam during the war. Their affection for one another provides a striking contrast to the violence of warfare.
Officer Dealy
Counseling helps family deal with the discovery that their child was sexually abused by the closest relative.
Morton Sanders
A TV reporter and cameraman are taken hostage on a tugboat while covering a workers strike. The demands of the hostage-takers are to collect all the nuclear detonators in the Charleston, SC area so they may be detonated at sea. They threaten to detonate a nuclear device of their own of their demand isnt met.
Chuck Maxwell
Mr. Addams
A 1982 made-for-television remake of the 1952 Fred Zinnemann film. Shown as a feature on "NBC Live Theater."
Dr. Symington
The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.
Clarence Blake
A man is wrongly convicted for murder and sent to prison, where he is accused of murdering a brutal guard he killed in self-defense.
Tom Keating
A respectable businessman becomes the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of several young girls. He is hounded by the media and disowned by his friends and neighbours.
Harless Hocker
Bubba, an intellectually disabled man, is falsely accused of attacking a young girl. Disguised as a scarecrow, he hides in a cornfield, only to be hunted down and shot by four vigilante men. After they are acquitted due to lack of evidence, the men find themselves being stalked one by one.
Tug Barnes
New York City detective Daniel Ciello agrees to help the United States Department of Justice help eliminate corruption in the police department, as long as he will not have to turn in any close friends. In doing so, Ciello uncovers a conspiracy within the force to smuggle drugs to street informants.
Don Payer
A distraught widower is caught in a bitter custody battle with his late wife's parents over his 10-year-old son, following his plans to remarry and move off to California with the boy.
Randolph Dukane
A Southern gal who runs her family's auto repair shop, her aspiring country singer sister, and their stock-car racing friend who runs moonshine on the side are conned into working as government undercover agents to track down a dangerous criminal in this pilot to a prospective series.
Don
The story of a woman who survives the car accident which kills her husband, but discovers that she has the power to heal other people. She becomes an unwitting celebrity, the hope of those in desperate need of healing, and a lightning rod for religious beliefs and skeptics.
Brag
Buck Bonham is a country singer on the road caught in a romantic triangle with Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving, the daughter of one of his longtime musical sidekick.
Preacher
Sam, a recovering alcoholic, feels dissatisfied with his life of sobriety and goes back in search of the good times he enjoyed with his wino friends on "the Nickel" of Los Angeles' skid row.
Fred Turner
True story of Clarence Gideon's fight to be appointed counsel at the expense of the state. This landmark case led to the Supreme Court's decision which extended this right to all criminal defendants.
Brian
A psycho-on-the-loose story, about a burned-out newspaper columnist and his circulation-hungry publisher who wants him to turn the killer into Page One news.
Sloan
A group of bored teenagers rebel against authority in the community of New Granada.
John Carlson
A deranged engineer, bent on revenge for the deaths of his wife and daughter, sets two passenger trains on a collision course, and con-man Robert Fuller puts his life on the line to ward off the crash.
Jack Collins
A family man must make an adjustment after his wife of fifteen years one day blurts out that she wants a divorce and leaves him to construct a new life.
Blake
Chilly is "top con" on the yard, a title that gives him absolute power. Power to make the rules. Power to kill. When a young con confronts Chilly's power, he learns the vicious price of defiance.
Bob Hartman
When a teenager is accused of his mother's murder, the community of Canaan rallies to his defense.
Clarence Hill, Union Steward
Fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass, and coupled with financial hardships on each man's end, three auto assembly line workers hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters.
Roy Walsh
The staff of the Back Bay Mainline, a Boston underground newspaper that rose to prominence in the 1960s, struggles with the shifting social climate of the '70s amid rumors that the paper is about to be sold to a media giant.
Mr. Shortley
A conscientious but driven Polish refugee disrupts the hierarchy of power on a Georgia farm in the 1940s.
Robert McDonough
When veteran anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire his 25-year post because of his age, he announces to viewers that he will kill himself during his farewell broadcast. Network executives rethink their decision when his fanatical tirade results in a spike in ratings.
Tyler
In 1930s Alabama, nine young black men are accused of raping two white women. The judge in the case, unlike the rest of the town, comes to believe that the boys are innocent and, against all advice from his friends and family, sets them free, which turns the entire community against him.
George Washington struggles to hold his army together at a critical point during the Revolutionary War.
Leroy
After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Minister Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's killers to justice.
Stage 1 (voice)
Everybody Rides The Carousel invites the viewer along on eight "rides" through the different stages of life. Based on the work by Erik Erikson, one of the most influential psychoanalytic theorists of this century, the film explores the inner feelings and conflicted emotions experienced during each stage of personality development. With distinctive and poetic animation, John and Faith Hubley visualize the conflicts, joys, problems and delights we all experience on the carousel of life.
Ted Ronan
A small-town police chief investigating a murder is offered help by a self-described psychic. However, when the chief discovers that the "psychic" is in possession of information known only to the police, he suspects that the man may be more involved in the case than he lets on.
Rick Penny
A young hell raiser quits his moonshine business and tries to become the best NASCAR racer the south has ever seen. Loosely based on the true story of NASCAR driver Junior Johnson.
Over a booze-fueled, increasingly hectic five-day shoot in East Hampton, Norman Mailer and his cast and crew spontaneously unloaded onto film the lurid and loony chronicle of U.S. presidential candidate and filmmaker Norman T. Kingsley debating and attacking his hangers-on and enemies. This gonzo narrative, “an inkblot test of Mailer’s own subconscious” (Time), becomes something like a documentary on its own making when costar Rip Torn breaks the fourth wall in one of cinema’s most alarming on-screen outbursts.
Partygoer
Sexual indiscretions are used as a basis for blackmail.
