Stephen Wolfe Smith(1961-2000)

Stephen was born in the city of Cardiff, South Wales, in the U.K. His mother, Pamela Smith, herself a professional Dancer and Model in her youth, raised Stephen and his younger sister Robin in the same house that that had been in the family for five generations. During this time Pamela Smith traveled throughout Europe as a popular Television personality, and stage Actress. This was made possible by the presence of Pamela's mother, Doris and Stephen's aunt, Patricia Couglin, who helped with both children when thier Mother had work outside of Wales or England. Stephen's Father, Billy Jack Smith was an American Marine Corp. Captain, and spent most of his children's childhood tranferring from Military base to base. Billy Jack was decorated by the U.S. goverment for Bravery, and Courage during the Vietnam conflict, and stayed in the Military until the mid 1970s, at which time he took a civilian job at a leading Corporate Insurance Brokerage, and settled down in Huntington Beach, California. Stephen's career started quite unexpectedly. While going with his Mother to an audition for a British Equity prod. of the musical "Oliver", Stephen, 12 at the time, sat restless, and loudly complained that he could sing better than the other boys auditioning for the title role. The Director, irritated with the child's critiques of every performer, dared Stephen to get onstage and "please show how you think it should be done". Backstage Pamela was embarrassed at her usually well behaved son's interruptions, and felt her possiblities of landing a role in this show were doomed. With confidence Stephen marched on the stage, was handed the sheet music to "Where is Love?" and began to sing. Backstage Pam heard this beautiful voice, with perfect pitch, hit every note correctly, with a vocal range she had never imagined in her own son. This was the first time Stephen had sung, period. The end result, with his mane of blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a voice determined to be at least 3 octaves, or more, Stephen won the role on the spot, and Pam won her role as well. Several Equity productions followed, in London Stephen was again cast as "Oliver", and then in 1974, cast as the Lead role of Michael Darling in the London production of "Peter Pan", which ran over a year. His last Equity part was playing "Toby" in the 1978-79 London Prod. of "Sweeny Todd", before joining his family in Huntington Beach, California. Having graduated from The Welsh Academy for boys at 16, Stephen was very upset that due to American Laws he was required to attend an American High School, because of his age, and the discounting of British Dipolma's in the case of "minors". So he and Robin both enrolled at Fountain Valley High, where Stephen received his Dipolma as part of the class of 1979. In his own words, "I hated every minute of it, I already had a better education, if it was not for the Drama and Choral clubs, I may not have bothered attending whatsoever".