Steve Smith (comedian)

Steve Smith, CM (born December 24, 1945, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian comedy writer and actor.

Before turning to comedy, Smith studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and then worked a variety of jobs. In 1979, he began to produce, write, and star in "Smith & Smith", a sketch comedy series with a cast of two: Smith and his wife, Morag Smith. The show was produced for Hamilton, Ontario's CHCH and syndicated to other television stations in Canada.

In 1985, Smith decided to try a different format and created the family sitcom "Me & Max". After just one season, however, Steve and Morag went back to sketch comedy, creating the new series "The Comedy Mill", which ran for four years.

Between "Comedy Mill" and "Red Green", Smith was writer of "Offside", a sports comedy series for CTV, head writer for Global's "Laughing Matters", and writer of the TV pilot "Out Of Our Minds" with David Steinberg. Uniquely enough, he wrote three episodes of CBS' "Top Cops" series. Smith was in charge of development on the failed "The Gordon Pinsent Show" for CBC.

In 1991, Smith made one of his recurring characters, who had appeared on all three previous shows, into the star of a new series, "The Red Green Show". Red Green, an inept handyman whose answer to almost everything — including, in one episode, Quebec sovereigntism — is duct tape, proved to be not only one of the most enduring characters in Canadian television history, but one of the most lucrative and durable Canadian television exports as well. In all, 300 episodes of the series were produced. In 2002 the full-length movie "Duct Tape Forever" was produced.

Smith also writes a syndicated newspaper column as Red Green, distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association.

He currently hosts a show on Space called "Steve Smith Playhouse". The concept is that a b-movie (such as "The Giant Gila Monster" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space") is edited down to about twenty minutes, and the dialogue of only one character is replaced by Smith.

On February 17 2006, Smith was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

He currently resides in Hamilton, Ontario

External links

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* [http://www.northernstars.ca/actorsstu/smith_stevebio.html NorthernStars.ca Profile - Steve Smith]
* [http://www.wpt.org/blog/2006/06/red-green-send-off.html Interview with Steve Smith] with Wisconsin Public Television about the Red Green Character, the show's legacy and the finale.