Frankie Thomas
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Frankie Thomas | |
|---|---|
 Frankie Thomas studio portrait, circa 1935. |
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| Born | Frank M. Thomas April 9, 1921 New York, New York, U.S. |
| Died | May 11, 2006 (aged 85) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other name(s) | Frankie Thomas, Jr. Frank M. Thomas, Jr. |
| Spouse(s) | Virginia Thomas |
Frankie Thomas (April 9, 1921 - May 11, 2006), also billed as Frank M. Thomas, Jr. and as Frankie Thomas, Jr., was a versatile actor who played both lead and supporting roles on Broadway, in films, in post-World War II radio, and in early television.
He was born in New York City to actors Mona Bruns and Frank M. Thomas. He liked to say that his whole family was always in the acting business, including his uncle [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?id=16331 Calvin Thomas and wife.
Frankie was only 11 when he accompanied his mother to a casting office, where he stood in the background while his mother asked about possible openings in new Broadway shows. The agent replied, "I have nothing that suits you, Mona, but I can use the boy." Frankie wound up in a small part in Carry Nation (1932); in the cast was also a very young Jimmy Stewart, as a constable.
He went on to appear in six other Broadway plays between 1932 and 1936, including Little Ol' Boy (with Burgess Meredith), Thunder on the Left, Wednesday's Child, The First Legion, Remember the Day (in which he appeared with his father), and Seen But Not Heard.
In Wednesday's Child he played the role of "Bobby Phillips," the longest stage part ever written for a child performer. Thomas also developed a life-long fascination with the character of Sherlock Holmes during this period, when he saw William Gillette perform the part during his "farewell tour".
When Wednesday's Child was filmed in 1934, Thomas and his parents travelled to Hollywood where both parents found character parts in films, while Thomas again essayed the role of Bobby Phillips for the cameras. The next year Thomas played the role of Nello Daas in the film version of Dog of Flanders, based on the famous Ouida novel. However, subsequently Thomas missed out on a couple of key juvenile starring roles, and eventually wound up in the serial Tim Tyler's Luck in 1937, based on the comic strip by Lyman Young. The role was a step down for Thomas, but, according to him in later years, one of the greatest experiences of his life, and the source of many of the stories he subsequently told with great gusto. He often said that for him, the serial was the equivalent of attending college, because he got to meet so many notable silent-film stars who were in the large cast, and hear long, detailed accounts of their careers. When not kept busy in Hollywood, Thomas had been returning to Broadway; the serial also marked the end of his Broadway appearances for five years.
Thomas's last "A" film was Boys' Town (1938) with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Thomas was far down in the cast as Freddy Fuller, Boys' Town's mayor, and was not asked to appear in the sequel, Men of Boys' Town (1941). From then on until he left Hollywood in 1942, Thomas was confined to "B" films such as Little Tough Guys in Society and Nancy Drew, Detective (both 1938), Nancy Drew, Reporter, Code of the Streets, Nancy Drew, Troubleshooter, The Angels Wash Their Faces, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, On Dress Parade and Invisible Stripes (all 1939). In 1941 he appeared in small parts in Flying Cadets and One Foot in Heaven. His last film roles were again small parts in Always in My Heart and The Major and the Minor (1942) where he played a military school cadet who flirts with the character played by Ginger Rogers.
His last appearance on Broadway was in Your Loving Son which closed after two performances in April of 1941. He joined the US Navy in 1942 and was assigned to the United States Coast Guard, served as a third officer on patrol in the Atlantic, and was discharged in Philadelphia in 1944.
After the war he and his parents lived in Manhattan and at first all three found work in the hundreds of radio daily and weekly series originating in the studios of the four major radio networks in New York. By 1948 all three Thomases were moving into early television broadcasting. In 1949 Thomas worked on two pioneering TV soap operas, A Woman to Remember and One Man's Family.
In the fall of 1950 he became the idol of millions of children when he took the part of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, beginning on CBS and transferring to ABC in January of 1951. The series continued its three-a-week 15-minute broadcasts until the spring of 1952. Kinescopes were rebroadcast on NBC in the summer of 1951, with live introductions by Thomas as Tom Corbett. During the spring of 1952 the TV cast of Tom Corbett also performed a two-a-week 30-minute broadcast on ABC radio. The next fall the TV series reappeared on DuMont alternating every Saturday with Secret Files of Captain Video for 30 minutes, going off the air again in May 1954. Thomas then took a role on another soap opera, First Love, but in December 1954, Tom Corbett blasted off again on NBC, running until June, 1955. By this time Tom's interplanetary rivals Captain Video and Commander Buzz Corry of Space Patrol had been off the air for several months. None of the three series were ever revived, although there was considerable talk of doing so in the Fall of 1957 in the aftermath of Sputnik.
Tom Corbett had the distinction of appearing on all four Golden-Age TV networks, and during the summer of 1951 actually running on two different networks simultaneously. Like the majority of child stars, Thomas never quite made the transition to adult roles. Despite the fact that Thomas was 34 years old at the end, the Tom Corbett character was supposedly a teenager attending Space Academy, training to become an officer of the Solar Guard.
In 1956, Thomas and his now-retired parents returned to California, where Thomas appeared in a few of the still-surviving radio series such as Suspense, and wrote soap-opera scripts. With characteristic energy, Thomas turned his hobby of bridge into a career, becoming editor of several bridge-related periodicals, and one-time president of the American Bridge Teachers' Association, as well as author of several books on bridge. In the late 1970s he also began to write and publish novels and short-story collections featuring Sherlock Holmes, a number of which are still in print.
Among the titles are:
- Sherlock Holmes and the Golden Bird (1979)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword (1980)
- Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (1984)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Treasure Train (1985)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Masquerade Murders (1986, 1996)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Bizarre Alibi (1989)
- Sherlock Holmes and the Panamanian Girls (2000)
- Sherlock Holmes Mystery Tales (2002)
- Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes (2002).
During the last decade of his life he relished appearing as celebrity guest at conventions devoted to old-time radio, to the Golden Age of Hollywood, and to the Golden Age of Television. Particularly during the last five years of his life he often appeared at such gatherings wearing his original Tom Corbett dress uniform, into which he still fit quite well.
Thomas also traveled the country in his later years to compete in bridge tournaments and instruct others in the card game's strategies.
He died at a Sherman Oaks, California hospital of respiratory failure, following a stroke, aged 85. At his request, he was buried in his "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" costume, beside his parents, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.
[edit] References
Goldrup, Tom and Jim Goldrup, Growing Up on the Set, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2002. ISBN 0-7864-1254-2.
