Carl Smith
Country music icon Carl Smith has died at his home in Tennessee at the age of 82. The Country Music Hall of Fame member passed away on Saturday.
Smith was a popular entertainer in America throughout the 1950s, when he was married to the late June Carter. The couple had one child together - singer/songwriter Carlene Carter - before splitting in 1957. Smith went on to marry singer Goldie Hill, who died in 2005.
He began his professional career as a teenager in 1944 when he became a part of radio personality Cas Walker's popular shows. Smith served in the Pacific on the USS Admiral Sims at the end of World War II and returned to his native Knoxville, Tennessee to work as a guitarist with the Brewster Brothers.
He also worked with Skeets Williamson, Molly O'Day and Archie Campbell, and developed as a singer under songwriter George 'Speedy' Krise, and he became a regular guest on weekly radio showcase, the Grand Ole Opry.
He hit America's top 10 in 1951 with Let's Live a Little and also enjoyed success with Mr. Moon, Hey Joe, Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way and If Teardrops Were Pennies. He later teamed up with fiddler Hal Smith and Hank Williams' one-time electric guitarist Sammy Pruett to form The Tunesmiths.
Smith's good looks and his flashy clothing made him a hit with female music fans and an obvious TV and movie star - he hosted TV series Stars of Country Music and also took a role opposite country star Marty Robbins in the film Buffalo Gun in 1956.
He also landed a role as Sheriff Carl Smith in 1957 film The Badge of Marshal Brennan and went on to feature in a string of low-budget 1960s movies, according to CMT.com, but his movie career never took off and the hits dried up and, by 1977, when Smith turned 50, he quit the music industry and dedicated his life to breeding horses.