He became interested in acting while he was at school, and was determined not to become a miner like his father, who died in a pit accident when Smith was only three years old.

He later moved to London, where he spent a year unemployed before obtaining a part in a play about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

[1] Two years later came one of his most famous roles, as George Barraclough in Sam, in a Granada Television drama series set in northern England.

Ray Smith died in December 1991 at the age of 55 in the lounge of Llandough Hospital after a major heart attack.

[3] An onscreen credit dedicated the series The Old Devils to his memory, and his performance in it won him a posthumous BAFTA Cymru Award (Best Actor) in 1993.