Smith and Jones founded Talkback, which grew to be one of the United Kingdom's largest producers of television comedy and light entertainment programming.

Smith's father, Kenneth, was born in Tow Law, County Durham, and worked at a coal mine during the Second World War; looking after the pit ponies.

After the war ended, he moved to London and married Smith's mother, whose parents owned a greengrocers in Chiswick.

His extra-curricular activities while at university led to his joining the Royal Court Theatre production team in London, and then Bristol Old Vic.

[5] John Lloyd later gained the opportunity to develop the idea that became the satirical BBC television series Not the Nine O'Clock News.

In 1982, he starred as the lead role in ITV drama Muck and Brass where he played Tom Craig, a ruthless property developer.

In 1984, he appeared in the Minder episode "A Star Is Gorn" playing the character Cyril Ash, a ruthless and crooked record producer.

His next cinema effort was better received as director of The Tall Guy (1989), giving Emma Thompson a major screen role.

The couple had houses in St John's Wood, London, and the hamlet of Great Haseley, Oxfordshire,[17] as well as a property in Barbados.

[18] Smith was hospitalised in 1999 with stomach ulcers, following an accidental overdose of over 50 Nurofen Plus tablets in one day, after previously admitting an addiction to sleeping pills.

Smith said at the time that the pressures of film work were a contributing factor, along with a desperate need to ease the pain caused by gout.