One of the stalwart character actors of the 1980s and 1990s was spotted enjoying a stroll in sunny summertime Los Angeles this week.
He was already middle-aged when he landed his Hollywood breakthrough in the shape of the villainous role of a crime lord in RoboCop.
In the ensuing years he featured in such classics as Dead Poets Society and A Time to Kill, and also acted opposite Sylvester Stallone in Rambo III.
Perhaps his most beloved role was on That ’70s Show, a sitcom that placed him amid a cast including the young Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
When he was glimpsed in Southern California this week at the age of 83, he still appeared spry and active, although he walked with the help of a cane.
Can you guess who he is?
One of the stalwart character actors of the 1980s and 1990s was spotted enjoying a stroll in sunny summertime Los Angeles this week
He was already middle-aged when he landed his Hollywood breakthrough in the shape of the villainous role of a crime lord in RoboCop
When he was glimpsed in Southern California this week at the age of 83, he still appeared spry and active, although he walked with the help of a cane
He is none other than Kurtwood Smith, who remains beloved by fans as the formidably gruff patriarch Red Forman on That ’70s Show.
With Debra Jo Rupp as his wife Kitty, Smith formed part of an iconic TV couple throughout the sitcom’s run from 1998 to 2006.
Their family included their children Eric (Topher Grace) and Laurie (first Lisa Robin Kelly, then Christina Moore) and their adopted son Hyde (Danny Masterson).
Kurtwood Larson Smith was born in Wisconsin in July 1943, less than two years before his father was killed in the Second World War.
Although he grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs, he summered in Wisconsin on his grandparents’ farm, which ‘was a great way to grow up,’ he reflected.
His interest in showbiz was ignited in college, when he grew sick of his studies and alighted on the idea: ‘You know what? Maybe I should try an acting class.’
Once he played a scene, he thought: ‘Oh, I like this. I know what I’m doing here. I feel comfortable with this,’ he shared with Smashing Interviews.
Smith began his career on the stage in the San Francisco Bay Area, both in repertory and at a Shakespeare festival he regarded as ‘my real training ground.’
He is none other than Kurtwood Smith, who remains beloved as Red Forman on That ’70s Show, on which he is pictured (right) with Danny Masterson (left) and Topher Grace (middle)
(back left to right) Wilmer Valderrama, Ashton Kutcher, Danny Masterson, Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, (front left to right) Don Stark, Tanya Roberts, Mila Kunis, Lisa Robin Kelly, Debra Jo Kupp and Smith are pictured together for That ’70s Show
One summer in the 1970s, he acted in three plays with a young theater student he already ‘knew was going places’ called Robin Williams.
In 1987, Smith achieved his big break in Hollywood with the role of the ruthless mob boss Clarence Boddicker in Paul Verhoeven’s classic sci-fi picture RoboCop.
Boddicker commits the grisly murder of policeman Alex Murphy (Peter Weller), who is subsequently reconstructed into a cyborg and launched back into the world of law enforcement to apprehend the villainous gang.
A couple of years ago, Smith revealed that during the movie’s famous riot scene, his jacket actually caught alight in real life and had to be hurriedly torn off him, for which he earned an extra $400 in stunt pay, on The Rich Eisen Show.
In 1988 he played a US Embassy field operative who helps Sylvester Stallone’s title character in Rambo III, which placed its lead in the Soviet-Afghan War.
One year later he featured as the father of Robert Sean Leonard’s lead character Neil in the boarding school drama Dead Poets Society.
The authoritarian parenting of Smith’s character drives his son to seek a mentor in the shape of the kindly English teacher played by none other than Robin Williams.
Smith recalled Williams as a ‘very sweet and wonderful guy’ whose genuine temperament was much more similar to that of his gentle Dead Poets Society character than the manic comic persona he adopted as Mork on Happy Days.
He featured in RoboCop as mob boss Clarence Boddicker (left), murderer of the policeman played by Peter Weller who is eventually reconstructed as a cyborg (right)
In 1988 he played a US Embassy field operative who helps Sylvester Stallone’s title character in Rambo III, in which he is pictured (left) with Richard Crenna (right)
One year later he featured as the father of Robert Sean Leonard’s lead character Neil in the boarding school drama Dead Poets Society
‘If it was you and a couple of people, he was very sweet and down-to-earth, but he’d bring in three, four, five people and bang! He’s on,’ Smith remembered.
His career as a top-flight character actor continued through the 1990s with such films as the John Grisham adaptation A Time to Kill, a legal drama about racism starring Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Spacey.
Smith played the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, amid a cast that included both Donald and Kiefer Sutherland as well as a then-unknown Octavia Spencer as a nurse.
In 1998 he began playing his best-remembered role of Red on That ’70s Show – the father of the Wisconsin family whose garage plays host to the group of friends played by such names as Wilmer Valderrama, Laura Prepon, Kutcher and Kunis.
Red was particularly adored by fans for his propensity to issue various rephrased versions of a threat to put his foot in someone’s rear end.
Another one of his frequently quoted bon mots was one to Eric: ‘Son, you don’t have bad luck. The reason bad things happen to you is because you’re a dumba**.’
Although the show ended in 2006, Smith retained a warm bond with a number of his castmates with – at one point – controversial results.
In 2023, after Danny Masterson was convicted of raping two women, Smith joined a claque of his That ’70s Show co-stars including Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Debra Jo Rupp in pleading unsuccessfully for mercy from the judge.
Apart from That ’70s Show and its short-lived Netflix spin-off That ’90s Show, Smith’s TV career has included guest shots on such shows as The X-Files, various Star Trek programs, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Everybody Loves Raymond, Malcolm in the Middle, 24, Robot Chicken, Suits, Rick and Morty and The Simpsons.
From 2017 through 2020 he also held a recurring role on The Ranch, a Netflix sitcom that reunited Kutcher and Masterson as brothers.
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