Smith Center namesake Fred W. Smith dies
The Smith Center namesake Fred W. Smith, former chairman of the Review-Journal’s onetime parent company Donrey Media Group, died Sunday night at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. He was 84.
He had been “suffering from heart disease and it had progressed to the point where he finally succumbed,” according to Steve Anderson, president of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, which Smith formerly oversaw.
“He was fighting,” Smith’s son Fred W. “Wes” Smith Jr., said Monday, “but his heart and lungs were weakened over the years.”
Smith sold his Las Vegas home in recent years and moved to Pebble Beach, California, where he had a vacation condo for 25 years. He spent more time there after Wes Smith relocated in 2010, his son said.
Smith may have moved away from his longtime hometown — he arrived here in 1961 — but he left a permanent legacy through The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2012 in downtown’s Symphony Park, thanks in part to $150 million in Reynolds foundation donations.
“He was very proud to be associated with, and have his name on, The Smith Center,” Anderson said.
His father loved attending plays and concerts at the performing arts complex, his son noted.
“He didn’t waste a lot of time with any superficial details,” Wes Smith said. “He got right to the heart of the matter.”
That approach paved the way for Las Vegas’ “Heart of the Arts,” as The Smith Center bills itself, at a time when there was skepticism surrounding the proposed complex, Smith’s son recalled. The center’s proponents convinced him that the cultural complex would “help the city thrive” and “improve the life experience” of locals — and Smith “bet on it.”
The decision was typical for a man who “didn’t look back very often — and didn’t have to, very often,” Wes Smith said. “His judgment of people was spot-on,” in both philanthropy and in business.
Smith was hardly a household name when he chaired the Donrey Media Group, former parent company of the Review-Journal, building it into a billion-dollar enterprise at its late-1980s peak, with 52 daily newspapers, five cable TV companies, radio and TV stations and outdoor advertising.
Smith came to Las Vegas from Fort Smith, Arkansas, rising from general manager to vice president of Donrey’s operations in the western U.S., which included the chain’s largest newspaper, the Review-Journal. In 1973, he became the company’s vice president and chief operating officer; he was appointed president in 1987 and chairman in 1990.
Smith’s behind-the-scenes business acumen made his boss, Donald W. Reynolds, Nevada’s richest man before Reynolds died in 1993. That year, Arkansas businessman Jackson Stephens — a friend of Smith’s — bought the company, which became the Stephens Media Group.
Smith’s ties to Reynolds continued even after the sale, when — as chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation board — he helped determine how to spend more than $1 billion in assets.
In 2005, the foundation gave $50 million to spark development of what became The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, named in honor of Smith and his first wife, Mary B. Smith, who died in 2010. (A bronze statue of the couple stands at the west entrance of the center’s Reynolds Hall.)
The Reynolds foundation later donated $100 million to help complete The Smith Center, making it the largest philanthropic contribution in Nevada history.
Initially, Smith “didn’t really know how performing arts centers operated,” according to Smith Center president Myron Martin. “His idea of a performing arts complex was a beer joint where you heard Willie Nelson.” (The Smith Center’s elegant Reynolds Hall is hardly a beer joint, but Smith did see Nelson perform there during the center’s opening gala in March 2012.)
While The Smith Center was in the planning stages, Smith and Martin visited several Southern California arts complexes to help Smith understand their importance and operation.
When Smith saw “school buses full of kids” surround the Cerritos Center in suburban Los Angeles County, he was touched, Martin recalled.
” ‘Impacting children’s lives,’ ” Wes Smith remembered his father saying of the visit.” ‘That means something to me.’ “
So did the future Smith Center’s architecture.
At downtown Los Angeles’ Music Center, Smith saw famed architect Frank Gehry’s silver-clad, curvilinear Walt Disney Concert Hall and told Martin, ” ‘Just promise me it won’t look like that.’ ” (The Smith Center doesn’t look like that — but, around the corner, the Gehry-designed Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health definitely does.)
The elder Smith wanted Las Vegas’ performing arts complex to be built to last, Wes Smith said, with an architectural style that “hearkened back to the birth of Las Vegas” and “would stand the test of time.”
Despite the Reynolds Foundation’s $150 million contribution to The Smith Center, Smith “really, really had no interest in micromanaging” its development, Martin said.
Martin said Smith made suggestions “without preaching or saying this is the way you ought to do it.” He could be “intimidating” and was “not known as someone who smiles a lot — outwardly. He was a big, powerful, smart, successful man — but, for whatever reason, I could tease with him.”
But not enough to call Smith by his first name. Although Smith gave Martin “permission to call him Fred,” to Martin “Mr. Smith will always be Mr. Smith.”
Smith was born Jan. 1, 1934, in Peno, Oklahoma — across the Arkansas River from Fort Smith, Arkansas, where he moved with his family when he was a year old, Anderson said.
Long after Smith moved to Las Vegas, his Arkansas ties held strong; privately and through the Reynolds Foundation, he donated millions of dollars to the University of Arkansas and its football program. The university’s Fred W. Smith Football Center, headquarters for the team’s football operations, opened in 2013.
In addition to Fred W. Smith Jr., Smith is survived by his wife, Maria Smith of Pebble Beach; daughter Deborah Smith Magness of Las Vegas; son Jonathan P. Smith of Incline Village; and grandchildren Katie and Geoffrey Magness and Dylan and Ian Smith.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete, but will be handled by Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.
Contact Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @CarolSCling on Twitter. This article includes information from the late Ed Vogel, former Carson City bureau chief for the Review-Journal, who interviewed Smith for the Review-Journal’s “The First 100,” which profiled people who contributed to the shaping of Southern Nevada.
