Mel Smith (3 December 1952 – 19 July 2013)

The great comedian, director, promoter and gambler Mel Smith died aged 60 after what was described as a massive heart attack. Mel Smith had a face that was made for comedy. His down at heel hang dog look was perfect for the roles he played which were usually the gruff working class lad with a temper.  Although he went to a private school were people like Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman went too, he always had the persona as semi intellectual who could tell a joke or two, when really he was a student at Oxford University.

Mel Smith was a habitual gambler and during the 1980’s he had such a bad run that there was talk of the Jockey Club ‘warning him off the racecourses’ which is equivalent to being barred from every racecourse because you could not pay your debts owned to bookmakers. Basically he seriously lost a lot of money. This was surprising since Mel Smith’s father was a rather successful bookmaker and made enough money to send Mel Smith to Latymer Upper School. 

After his escape from losing loads of money to bookmakers, Mel Smith started to invest his time and energy into other ventures such as setting up TalkBack Productions with his comedic partner Griff Rhys Jones. The company was later sold for £63 million to the Pearson Group. He also went into directing films and made a massive success with the first Mr Bean movies with another of his old working partner Rowan Atkinson. ‘Bean’ made a massive $250+ million at the box office for a small budget of $18 million. But not even with this success under his belt could Mel Smith break the perception that he was ‘just a comedian on the telly’.

His best gamble was doing ‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’ which was the first of the new ‘alternative comedy’ which aimed to break the stereo type of mother in law jokes and easy sexism which was around in the late 1970’s. Not The Nine O’Clock News went on to make a major impact and led to Mel Smith starring with Griff Rhys Jones in ‘Alas Smith and Jones’ and their hilarious two men having a chat routine, in which Jones played the snobby intellectual and Smith the confused dullard.

Mel Smith leaves a wife and son.

Not The Nine O’Clock News – Gerald the gorilla

Alas Smith & Jones – Series 1 Episode 1 Part 1

Alas Smith & Jones – Series 1 Episode 1 Part 2

Alas Smith & Jones – Series 1 Episode 1 Part 3