Cecil Smith (May 22, 1917 – July 11, 2009) was an American journalist, critic, screenwriter, radio play author, television host, and World War II military officer and bomber pilot. He was the longtime television critic for the Los Angeles Times from the 1950s through the 1980s.[1] Media scholar Melissa Crawley in her book The American Television Critic (2017, McFarland & Company), stated that Smith along with Hal Humphrey were "two of the most influential" television critics of their era in criticism.[2] At the time of his death in 2009, critic Howard Rosenberg stated that Smith "was one of the giants in the business".[1]