Goodbye Old Friend

"Great Shades of Elvis!"

That's what I first thought when I heard that Lane Smith had died this month. He played Perry White on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, where I worked as supervising producer during the first season. My friend and executive producer, Deborah Joy LeVine, had given him that exclamation to replace the 50s series version of "Great Ceaser's Ghost" because of Lane's background, coming from Memphis, Tennessee.

Lane Smith (1936-2005)

Working with Lane on Lois & Clark, however, was a re-union, not an introduction. The first series I'd ever produced on network TV, Kay O'Brien, gave me the chance to work with Lane when co-creators Bill Asher, Brad Markowitz and I all agreed that he was the perfect choice to play Dr. Robert Moffitt, Kayo's attending surgeon and a series lead. He was spot-on in his characterization, the classic tough but tender friend and mentor.

You can read about Lane's credits by clicking through on one of the links above. He had a bunch, from playing Nixon in The Final Days to playing Randle McMurphy for 650 off-Broadway performances of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

What I remember is that Lane could be a southern gentleman, sure, but he could also tell a great joke and with his drawl any story turned out to be worth listening to. That's the side people got to see when he played Perry White. Damn, he was funny! But I also liked how he brought such craft and integrity to all his roles and always cared enough to get it right.

A line that Brad and I wrote for Lane in the Kay O'Brien pilot comes back to me now. Kayo had been complaining about how hard life was and he was sympathetic but honest.

"It ain't right and it ain't fair. It's just the way it is."