Actor Ian Smith, who played Harold Bishop in Neighbours, says his terminal cancer diagnosis put him in a “cruel, ugly, brutal place”. The 86-year-old actor, known for playing the former cafe owner in the Australian soap, revealed in 2024 that he has a rare form of lung cancer called pulmonary pleomorphic carcinoma. On Friday, Smith told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that when he received his diagnosis he was in a space where “no one is there to help you”, even if they make attempts. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today He said: “They (people) won’t know, until maybe it happens to them themselves. “It’s a cruel, ugly, brutal place ... and I don’t know how, but it looks like I’m having the best luck in the world with defeating this cancer.” Smith said his oncologist can’t confirm that he is improving as his cancer is “so rare, so drastic, so severe, so awful, they don’t know what it’s going to do”. Ian Smith says his oncologist can't confirm that he is improving as his cancer is "so rare". (Tracey Nearmy/AAP PHOTOS) Credit: AAP He added the doctor told him the medical profession knows “so little about this cancer that (they) don’t know if you stop taking the treatments, it may roar back into life”, so the actor is “putting up” with the medical therapy every three weeks. “It looks like these very clever people are going to keep me alive,” he said. Smith previously said he has gone through chemotherapy, and been doing immunotherapy, which uses the body’s immune system to attack the cancer cells. This month, Smith had his exit on the soap, saying goodbye to tuba-playing blunderer Harold, a character he has portrayed on and off since 1987, for the final time. In February it was announced that Neighbours would be “rested” for a second time in recent years after being revived by Amazon Prime Video following its axing by Britain’s Channel 5 in 2022 - with production hoping another broadcaster will pick it up. Smith said “in my opinion, as long as there is a newspaper, as long as the sun rises and the humans start being human, there will be a space for a show called Neighbours”. He added: “People are interested in looking over the back fence to see what their neighbours are doing, and as long as that’s happening, there’s every right for the show to keep going. “But it’s up to the storyliners and the writers and (the bosses) to carry that story from off the street onto a script to actors who are clever enough to retell it on screen and make it interesting.” Smith’s storylines on the soap have involved his lasting love of Madge (Anne Charleston), who Harold’s entry to Ramsay Street original centred on, as well as him getting into difficulty for his misunderstandings.