Charles C. Stevenson Jr., the actor best known for playing barman Smitty on “Will & Grace,” has died. He was 95.
According to Stevenson’s family, the popular character actor passed away from natural causes last month on Jan. 19 in Camarillo, California.
Over his four-decade career, Stevenson Jr. nabbed a number of supporting roles in film and television, including “Pleasantville,” “Men In Black,” “Ed Wood,” “Ghost World,” “The Middle,” “Glee,” “Bunheads,” “My Name Is Earl” and “House,” among other notable titles.
However, it was his recurring role as Smitty the bartender opposite Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker on NBC’s “Will & Grace” that made him a pop culture figure. Actor David St. James first portrayed Smitty in the Season 3 episode, “Tea and a Total Lack of Sympathy,” but Stevenson Jr. took over the role and portrayed the deadpan barman until the show’s original run ended back in 2006.
Stevenson Jr. returned to the role of Smitty for the “Will & Grace” revival, which ran for three seasons between 2017-2020 on NBC.
A veteran character actor, Stevenson Jr. also regularly played preachers or priests, with his son, Scott, noting, “In his own words, his job was ‘marrying or burying people.’”
He continued: “As he told it, the panic-stricken director would invariably come to him to beg him to find a way to fill in unscripted space between ‘We are gathered here together’ (where he’d probably get his close-up) and the ‘amen’ at the end of the scene (where he usually wouldn’t). [He] admitted that he got pretty good at that.”
Stevenson Jr. was raised in Piedmont, California, and attended UC Berkeley, where he earned a degree in English. Prior to that, he served in the Navy during the Korean War.
For a time after graduation, Stevenson Jr. worked with non-profits, including Project Hope and the Epilepsy Foundation, where he helped with fundraising, chapter development and public awareness drives. By the 1960s, he had moved to Los Angeles, where he worked on PSAs and other charitable events with celebrities like James Stewart, Jack Lemmon and Henry Winkler.
Stevenson Jr. is survived by his children, Charles III, Valerie, Catherine, Scott and William, as well as eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
