diff --git a/django/utils/html.py b/django/utils/html.py
index d06440b52e..607362817b 100644
--- a/django/utils/html.py
+++ b/django/utils/html.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ del x # Temporary variable
 def escape(html):
     "Returns the given HTML with ampersands, quotes and carets encoded"
     if not isinstance(html, basestring):
-        html = smart_unicode(html)
+        html = str(html)
     return html.replace('&', '&amp;').replace('<', '&lt;').replace('>', '&gt;').replace('"', '&quot;').replace("'", '&#39;')
 
 def linebreaks(value):