Trivia

Buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA.

With J. Stuart Blackton and William T. Rock, formed pioneering production company Vitagraph Company of America.

Before he entered the film business, he fought in the British army in the Boer War in South Africa and was with Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

He had a reputation as a brusque, no-nonsense businessman, never letting sentiment or emotion get in the way of a deal. On at least one occasion, though, that backfired on him. In 1916, as the head of Vitagraph Studios, he was about to sign Mary Pickford to a $10,000-a-week contract. Pickford, who adored children, asked if she could see Smith's new baby. Smith curtly replied, "Let's get this business off our minds first." Pickford, outraged at his putting business matters ahead of his own child, answered, "Well, then, I'll never see it!" and stormed out without signing the contract. Shortly afterwards she signed with Famous Players-Lasky, and was on her way to superstardom.

In his autobiography, "Two Reels and a Crank" (1952), he claimed to have secured a close-up view of President William McKinley at the moment he was shot by assassin Leon Czolgosz on 6 September,1901. He claimed, by the time of that writing, that the original strip of film had deteriorated to only a few frames.

Traveled to South Africa to shoot scenes of real battles of the Second Boer War, 1899.

In 1915 was a founding partner of V-L-S-E, a film distribution company.

Brother of David Smith.

Brother of W. Steve Smith Jr..