Sir Charles Aubrey Smith CBE (21 July 1863 – 20 December 1948), known to film-goers as C. Aubrey Smith, was an England Test cricketer who became a stage and film actor, acquiring a niche as the officer-and-gentleman type, as in the first sound version of The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). In Hollywood, he organised English actors into a cricket team, playing formal matches that much intrigued local spectators.
He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6327 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
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His only (cricket) Test Match appearance was the 1st Test against South Africa at Crusaders Ground, St George's Park, Port Elizabeth on 12-13 March 1889. It was actually a 3 day match but finished early. He was the best of the England bowlers picking up 5-19 off 13.2 overs in the first innings and 2-42 off 25 in the second (a total of 154 balls as these were 4-ball overs). He scored 3 runs in the first innings, batting at no. 8, and was not required to bat in the second as England won the match for the loss of only 2 wickets. He captained the England side. This was England's first tour to South Africa and, during it, he took 134 wickets at an average of 7.61. He stayed in South Africa after the tour and captained Transvaal.
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In the late 1880s, while he was mining for gold in South Africa, he developed pneumonia and was wrongly pronounced dead by doctors.
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Brother-in-law of playwright/novelist Cosmo Hamilton (married Smith's sister).
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He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1938 King's Birthday Honours List and was knighted in the 1944 King's Birthday Honours List for his services to Anglo-American amity.
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Around Hollywood, Sir Aubrey was perhaps best known as team captain of the Hollywood Cricket Club. In fact, the club's home field and clubhouse in Los Angeles' Griffith Park was named for Sir Aubrey in 1933. Although the Hollywood Cricket club was not particularly successful on the field, it did feature numerous British emigre actors of the era.
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Little Women
1949
Mr. Laurence (as Sir C. Aubrey Smith)
Luxury Liner
1948
Edward Thorndike
An Ideal Husband
1947
Earl of Caversham, Goring's Father (as Sir C. Aubrey Smith)
$300,000
