For other persons named Melvin Smith, see Melvin Smith (disambiguation).
Melvin Smith
Not The Nine O'Clock News
Born: 3 December 1952 (1952-12-03) (age 54)
Chiswick, London, England
Occupation
Comedian, Writer, Actor, Film director,
Film producer
Career milestones
Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979-1982)
Alas Smith and Jones (1982-1998)
Mel Smith (born in Chiswick, London on 3 December 1952) is an English comedian, actor, film director, writer, and producer.
Smith's father Kenneth was born in Tow Law, County Durham, and worked at a coal mine in the Second World War looking after the pit ponies. After the war he moved to London, and married Smith's mother, whose parents owned a greengrocers store in Chiswick, West London. When the government legalised High Street betting, he turned the shop into the first betting shop in Chiswick
Smith was born and raised over the shop, and was educated at Latymer Upper School and New College, Oxford
He produced The Tempest, while at the University of Oxford, and this led to him joining the Royal Court Theatre production team in London, followed by Bristol Old Vic. He was also associate director of Sheffield's Crucible Theatre for two years. Later, he directed a theatre production of "Not in Front of the Audience"
When Smith was at Oxford, he would come up to the Edinburgh Fringe with the Oxford University Dramatic Society. One year they had to share a venue with the Cambridge Footlights, directed by John Lloyd. Lloyd later got the opportunity to develop the idea which became the satirical BBC television series Not the Nine O'clock News. Lloyd rang Smith to ask if he fancied doing it, to which Smith agreed for £100 an episode . This was followed briefly by Smith and Goody (with Bob Goody) and then the comedy sketch series Alas Smith and Jones, co-starring Griff Rhys Jones, its title being a pun on the name of the American TV series Alias Smith and Jones. He also appeared in Muck and Brass, and also guest starred on an episode of The Goodies.
In 1981, Smith and Griff Rhys Jones founded TalkBack Productions, a company which has produced many of the most significant British comedy shows of the past two decades, including Smack the Pony, Da Ali G Show, I'm Alan Partridge and Big Train. They also developed the company to manage other acts, including Matt Lucas and David Walliams of "Little Britain" fame. In 2000, they sold the company to Thames TV for £62 million.
Smith co-wrote and had the lead role in the space comedy Morons from Outer Space but the film failed to make much impact. His next cinema effort was better received as director of The Tall Guy, giving Emma Thompson a major screen role. Perhaps his best-known motion picture in America is Brain Donors, the 1992 update of the comedy classic A Night at the Opera, starring Smith as a cheeky, opportunistic cab driver turned ballet promoter. Paramount Pictures considered this film the outstanding comedy of the year, but when the producers left Paramount for another studio, Paramount withdrew its support for Brain Donors, which never received its due as a very funny film.
In 1987, he recorded a single with Kim Wilde for Comic Relief, a cover of the Christmas song "Rockin' around the Christmas tree" with some extra comedy lines written by Smith and Rhys Jones.
Smith and Jones were reunited in 2005 for a review/revival of their previous TV series in "The Alas Smith And Jones Sketchbook". Smith joked that "Obviously, Griff's got more money than me so he came to work in a Rolls Royce and I came on a bicycle. But it was great fun to do and we are firmly committed to doing something new together, because you don't chuck that sort of chemistry away. Of course, I'll have to pretend I like Restoration"
Smith returned to the theatre stage after some 20 years in August 2006, appearing in Irish journalist and author Mary Kenny's play about Churchill's encounter with the Irish nationalist leader Michael Collins in 1921, at the Edinburgh Fringe festival . The play initially caused some controversy, with Smith proposing to flout the Scottish ban on smoking in public places: the scene was quickly adapted after gaining the required amount of publicity
In Autumn 2006, Smith will star opposite Belinda Lang in a tour of a new comedy "An Hour and a Half Late" by French playwright Gérald Sibleyras, and adapted by Smith. He will then direct a West End revival of "Charley's Aunt" starring Stephen Tompkinson
Smith is married to Pam, a former model who grew up in Easington and Durham, and the couple have houses in St John's Wood, Oxfordshire and Barbados
Smith ended up seriously ill in hospital in 1999 after consuming more than 50 Nurofen tablets, the culmination of a growing addiction to the pills. He said at the time that the pressures of film work were a contributing factor, along with a desperate need to ease the pain caused by gout. Partly as a result, he agreed to sell Talkback, but Smith admitted to restlessness: "I said to my wife that I needed to do something to get me out of the house."
The actor has had a long time love of Rolls Royce cars, buying his first Silver Shadow at Brighton Racecourse from an advert in "Sporting Life" for £5000. He presently drives a Rolls Royce Corniche
