Biography

Although John was born at the foot of Pike's Peak mountain in Colorado, he grew up in Northern California; attending school and engaging in all of the arts: cartooning, drama productions, and playing in a garage band during the exciting days of The Summer of Love in and near San Francisco. After migrating to Santa Cruz, where he lived with his new bride and young daughter in a redwood canyon, he worked for the local energy company for eight years, and served his country during the Vietnam era in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and U. S. Army Reserve for six years.

He then moved his family to the sun of Florida in 1978 and began a 32-year long career with the energy company there. He also earned his AA, BS and MBA degrees while raising his family. An early retirement option presented itself, so John hopped on board and has never looked back. Since then he has engaged in two of his great interests: writing American Revolution history, and being in front of the camera. His historical articles have been published in Journal of the American Revolution, Smithsonian Magazine, Knowledge Quest, the National Review, as well as having been profiled on CNN. He's very busy in 2018 writing an entertaining/educational book for "regular people" of the American Revolution. His passion is to make the stories of America's founding easier and more fun to learn than boring, stodgy history books usually make them.

He has acted in at least fifteen films, numerous commercials, TV shows, and commercial videos. His very first venture into films was as an extra in "The Conspirator", a historical Civil War film directed by Robert Redford. After a few weeks of production, Mr. Redford gave John some speaking lines, which in turn gave John a SAG card. He says he's very thankful to Mr. Redford for that first great opportunity. After parts in following films and TV shows such as "Iron Man 3", "X-Men: First Class", "Magic City" and "Hindsight", John was cast as Robert Redford's photo double and stand-in during the entire production of "A Walk in the Woods". In 2016, John was cast as President Jimmy Carter in the TV movie "Killing Reagan".

While finishing his history book in 2018, he is doing local commercials, and letting the cat in and out of the house all day long. By: John L. Smith Jr.
- IMDb mini biography by: John L Smith Jr.