Football star and actor Bubba Smith died 3 August 2011, apparently of natural causes. Born Charles Aaron Smith on 28 February 1945, in Beaumont, Texas, he became a star as a defensive end at Michigan State University in the mid-1960s. After retiring from football, he went on to a successful film and television career.
Henry Bulllough, Smith’s defensive coordinator at MSU, told Fox Sports “He was 6-foot-7, 265 pounds, and he could run.… He’s one of the greatest defensive players in college football history.” He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988. After college, he played for the Baltimore Colts (he was the number 1 draft pick in 1967), Oakland Raiders, and Houston Oilers, and was selected to the Pro Bowl in 1970 and 1971. Following his retirement from football in 1976, his acting career began with commercials.
Smith’s first television appearance came in an episode of The New Adventures of Wonder Woman in 1978, and starred in the short-lived television series Blue Thunder (1984, it was based on the Roy Scheider movie of the same name), but his lasting acting fame came as the soft-spoken giant Moses Hightower in the Police Academy films. His other genre appearances include: Blood River (2010), Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1997), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), and Black Moon Rising (1986).