Stephen Wolfe Smith(1961-2000)
- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Stephen was born in the city of Cardiff, South Wales, in the U.K. His
mother, Pamela Smith, herself a professional Dancer and Model in her
youth, raised Stephen and his younger sister Robin in the same house
that that had been in the family for five generations. During this time
Pamela Smith traveled throughout Europe as a popular Television
personality, and stage Actress. This was made possible by the presence
of Pamela's mother, Doris and Stephen's aunt, Patricia Couglin, who
helped with both children when thier Mother had work outside of Wales
or England. Stephen's Father, Billy Jack Smith was an American Marine
Corp. Captain, and spent most of his children's childhood tranferring
from Military base to base. Billy Jack was decorated by the U.S.
goverment for Bravery, and Courage during the Vietnam conflict, and
stayed in the Military until the mid 1970s, at which time he took a
civilian job at a leading Corporate Insurance Brokerage, and settled
down in Huntington Beach, California. Stephen's career started quite
unexpectedly. While going with his Mother to an audition for a British
Equity prod. of the musical "Oliver", Stephen, 12 at the time, sat
restless, and loudly complained that he could sing better than the
other boys auditioning for the title role. The Director, irritated with
the child's critiques of every performer, dared Stephen to get onstage
and "please show how you think it should be done". Backstage Pamela was
embarrassed at her usually well behaved son's interruptions, and felt
her possiblities of landing a role in this show were doomed. With
confidence Stephen marched on the stage, was handed the sheet music to
"Where is Love?" and began to sing. Backstage Pam heard this beautiful
voice, with perfect pitch, hit every note correctly, with a vocal range
she had never imagined in her own son. This was the first time Stephen
had sung, period. The end result, with his mane of blonde hair, bright
blue eyes, and a voice determined to be at least 3 octaves, or more,
Stephen won the role on the spot, and Pam won her role as well. Several
Equity productions followed, in London Stephen was again cast as
"Oliver", and then in 1974, cast as the Lead role of Michael Darling in
the London production of "Peter Pan", which ran over a year. His last
Equity part was playing "Toby" in the 1978-79 London Prod. of "Sweeny
Todd", before joining his family in Huntington Beach, California.
Having graduated from The Welsh Academy for boys at 16, Stephen was
very upset that due to American Laws he was required to attend an
American High School, because of his age, and the discounting of
British Dipolma's in the case of "minors". So he and Robin both
enrolled at Fountain Valley High, where Stephen received his Dipolma as
part of the class of 1979. In his own words, "I hated every minute of
it, I already had a better education, if it was not for the Drama and
Choral clubs, I may not have bothered attending whatsoever".