Career
Smethurst made his film debut in 1958's Carry On Sergeant. This was followed by parts in the films A Kind of Loving (1962), Run with the Wind (1966), Night After Night After Night (He Kills) (1970), the big-screen version of Please Sir! (1971) and the ITV sitcom For the Love of Ada (1970–71) amongst others, before he landed the role for which he is best known - that of bigoted socialist and union leader, 'brother' Eddie Booth in Love Thy Neighbour. The programme ran for eight series between 1972-1976.During this run he also appeared in the 1974 film 'Man about the house'.
After Love Thy Neighbour ended, his film appearances have been few and far between, but include Chariots of Fire (1981), the John Goodman vehicle King Ralph (1991) (which re-united him with his Love Thy Neighbour co-star Rudolph Walker) and 1996's La Passione.
He made several appearances as Davenport in Britain's longest-running television sitcom Last of the Summer Wine in 1997.
He has played two different characters in Coronation Street. Between 1980-1983, he occasionally appeared as Johnny Webb, one of the men on Eddie Yates' bin round. In 2001, he returned for several months as Stan Wagstaff, a friend of Jimmy Kelly, who left his allotment to Jack Duckworth. Together with his brother Ernie, Stan let Jack in on Jimmy's big secret - he used his allotment shed to brew poteen.
He also starred in Vince Powell’s 8-part BBC Radio 2 slice-of-life sitcom A Proper Charlie, as factory worker Charlie Garside in 1985. Madge Hindle played his wife, and Jane Hazlegrove and Jason Littler their daughter and son.
He appeared on stage in Australia when he appeared in the play Run for Your Wife, during (1987–1988), and the production toured the country. Other members of the cast in the production were David McCallum, Eric Sykes and Katy Manning. Smethurst regularly works in the theatre, recently touring with a production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
His son Adam is also an actor, who is married to the Welsh-born actress Rakie Ayola.
Read more about this topic: Jack Smethurst
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)