Loring Smith

Loring Smith was an American actor whose 65-year career spanned vaudeville, radio, theater, film and television; he was usually cast as blustery, comic businessmen and politicians. A native of Stratford, Connecticut, he had vaudeville and stage credits going back to the 1910s, and after a booking agent saw him perform at Camp Upton on Long Island he turned professional. He voiced hundreds of radio characters during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. On screen he took supporting parts in Keep 'Em Flying (1941) with Abbott and Costello and Shadow of the Thin Man (1941), a Nick and Nora Charles mystery, and he made a cameo in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958). He became a Broadway actor at 50, debuting in Glamour Preferred (1940) and later playing Horace Vandergelder in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker. He was a regular on the sitcom The Hartmans, starred opposite Mary Martin in Hello, Dolly! in London, and ended his career with Hurry Sundown (1967).