Beauty Smith (Zanna Bianca)

Charles "Beauty" Smith is the main antagonist of the 1974 Italian film Challenge to White Fang.

He was portrayed by John Steiner.

Role
Set in the Northwest Territories, Canada, in 1899. Mitsha (the young boy from the first White Fang movie), is working with his wolf-dog and two fur traders when Beauty Smith and two henchmen appear and raid the traders camp shooting all of them, including Mitsha, and escapes in a canoe with all their equipment.

Meanwhile, Beauty Smith is alive and well, and again exploiting the people of the very town where John and Bill live. Smith lives under the alias 'Charles Forth', a local businessman, and fakes a crippling injury by confining himself to a wheelchair with his two henchman always at his side. Sister Evangelina is now running a new mission hut in the town to convert into a hospital. She decides to ask 'Mr. Forth' for funding to operate her hospital despite warnings from the townsmen that 'Mr. Forth' is a businessman and won't give her any money unless she gives him assurances that she will repay the loan, with interest, within 60 days or less. Sister Evangelina neverless goes to meet with him, and she recognizes the villainous man immediately.

Sister Evangelina contacts novelist Jason Scott who's on a book tour down south and agrees to come to her assistance. Scott also meets with his old friend Kurt Johnson, now working as a local mines inspector to help out. Together, the three of them take their accusations to the town's police chief, Inspector Leclerq, who is actually on the payroll of Beauty Smith and he claims to have known the crippled 'Mr. Forth' for six years. Leclerq's wife Jane, is pressuring her husband to accommodate Smith's nefarious plans in return for more bribe money he gives them in exchange for protection since Smith is now a wanted fugitive.

The following day, Liverpool shamefacedly returns to the town having found two men, one dead and the other terribly ill from frostbite, who have been sold insufficient and overpriced supplies from Beauty Smith. The survivor, named Carter, has gangrene in both legs and Scott has to help Sister Evangelina perform the amputation at the mission hut. When Beauty Smith and his two henchmen see and recognize White Fang, they frame the wolf-dog for savaging Liverpool to death. An enraged posse attempts to kill White Fang, forcing Bill to drive the beast out of town.

The next day, when Bill looks for White Fang in the woods, he gets attacked by a vicious eagle, but White Fang jumps in and saves him by fighting off the eagle. Bill smuggles White Fang back into town and to Sister Evangelina's mission where the wolf-dog's injuries are tended. While visiting his grandson and his hound at the mission, John learns from Carter about the location of a gold-stream in the mountains that he found. But Harvey, a mission employee and a secret associate of Beauty Smith, sees them discussing the location and reports it to his boss. Jane then fakes a sickness to lure Sister Evangelina away from the mission, leaving Carter alone in his sickbed. Beauty Smith (no longer pretending to be crippled) pays a visit and tortures Carter for the location of the gold stream. Smith then kidnaps John Tarwater and has his two henchmen set fire to the mission hut. Carter is burned to death, while Bill, who walked in while Smith was torturing Carter, is trapped by the flames. When Sister Evangelina realizes that Jane is not sick, she races back to the burning mission and rushes in saving Bill, but gets caught on fire and dies from the severity of her burns.

Hearing of her death, the townspeople start a riot after learning from Bill about the wanted Beauty Smith and of Inspector Leclerq's association with him. As the mob breaks through the Mounties into the police station, Leclerq shoots himself. Scott, Kurt, and Bill find Jane where she tells them where Beauty Smith is heading. Scott and Kurt, with White Fang in tow, organize a posse to give chase. Locating Smith and his henchmen, Scott leads the posse forward and a gun battle develops. Smith manages to shoot a few posse members, while his two henchmen are killed. White Fang catches up to Smith and attacks him. Smith's gunshots miss the beast and instead triggers an avalanche. The villain finally dies as he gets crushed to death under the falling snow and ice.