Sources say that Smith was embittered over the reduction in time allowed for his commentaries and hence resigned after he criticized the revamped World News Tonight format as a "Punch and Judy show." Awards and film roles Among honors which Smith received over the years were DuPont Awards in 1955 and 1963, a Sigma Delta Chi Award for radio journalism in 1957, and an award from the American Jewish Congress in 1960. In 1962 he received the Paul White Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. Smith also appeared in a number of films, often as himself; The Best Man (1964), The Candidate (1972), The President's Plane Is Missing (1973, a made-for-television production of the Robert J. Serling novel of the same name), Nashville (1975), Network (1976), The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), "The Odd Candidate" (1974) episode of the television series The Odd Couple (playing himself), the "Kill Oscar" episode (1977) of The Bionic Woman (playing himself anchoring an ABC newscast), and both V (1983) and the subsequent 1984 television series. He appeared as the Narrator in the 1987 film Escape from Sobibor. Along with Last Train from Berlin, he wrote three other books, The Population Explosion (1960), the children's book Washington, D.C.: The Story of our Nation's Capital (1967), and a memoir Events Leading Up to My Death: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Reporter (1996). Personal life Smith met his future wife, Danish news reporter Benedicte Traberg, while working in Nazi Germany in 1941. Because she was only 20 at the time, she had to return to Denmark for parental approval, but the couple re-united three months later in Berne, Switzerland. The couple were married until Smith's death in 2002. Benedicte died in 2008. Their son Jack was an ABC correspondent who received Peabody and Emmy awards for his coverage of technology. Having left journalism for a job in Silicon Valley, Jack died at age 58 in 2004 of pancreatic cancer in Marin County, California. References External links Museum of Broadcast Communications Who's Who in America, 1972 edition 1914 births 2002 deaths 20th-century American journalists American male film actors 20th-century American memoirists 20th-century American non-fiction writers American radio reporters and correspondents American Rhodes Scholars American television news anchors Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.) Cajun