Kevin Tod Smith (16 March 1963 – 15 February 2002) was a New Zealand actor and musician, best known for starring as the Greek god of war, Ares, in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and in its two spin-offs – Xena: Warrior Princess and Young Hercules. He died in a fall at a film studio in China. Early life Kevin Smith was born in Auckland in 1963. His mother was of Tongan and German ancestry and his father (of English descent) hailed from New Zealand. Smith's family moved to the South Island town of Timaru when he was eleven. He attended Timaru Boys' High School from 1976 to 1979. He was involved in the drama club at his high school. Smith played in rock and roll bands during high school, working out each morning at the gym and watching television in the afternoon. He painted and played rugby and hoped to become a member of New Zealand's world-famous rugby team, the All Blacks. At the age of 17, Smith moved to Christchurch, where he lived in a flat above a fruit shop, worked at various jobs, and considered joining the police to help children, before enrolling in Canterbury University at the age of 20. In 1986 he married his high school sweetheart, Suzanne (Sue), with whom he had three sons: Oscar, Tyrone, and Willard. Career Smith played in several lo-fi experimental bands in New Zealand and released a few albums with Say Yes to Apes and Hyphen-Ears in the mid-1980s. After suffering a concussion while playing university rugby union in 1987, Smith was forced to sit on the sidelines for almost three weeks. His wife saw a casting call advertisement for the touring musical tribute to Elvis Presley, Are You Lonesome Tonight, and signed up Kevin for an audition. He got the role of bodyguard JoJoe and was the lead understudy. Later that year, Smith joined Christchurch's Court Theatre and performed on stage for the next three years in a variety of roles including Don Pedro in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1989, Smith co-founded a Christchurch theatresports group, Scared Scriptless, performing live comedy. Later that year he got the role of charming "bad boy" Demian Vermeer on the New Zealand primetime soap opera Gloss, and moved to Auckland to work on the series' final season. In