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| Also Known As: | Thomas Tryon | Died: | September 4, 1991 |
| Born: | January 14, 1926 | Cause of Death: | stomach cancer |
| Birth Place: | Hartford, Connecticut, USA | Profession: | actor, producer, novelist, screenwriter, TV production assistant, set designer |
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Tall, ruggedly handsome leading man of the 1950s and 60s who after a 16-year career gave up acting in 1971 to write the best-selling novels "Crowned Heads" and "Harvest Home". After beginning in a stock theatre company as a set painter and assistant manager, and later becoming a production assistant with NBC-TV, the Yale-educated Tryon entered film in 1955 with "Scarlet Hour". He appeared in mostly forgettable fare including "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (1958) (as a stone-faced alien), and as the title character in the 1958 Walt Disney TV series "Texas John Slaughter". The height of his acting career was the starring role in Otto Preminger's "The Cardinal" (1963). In 1971, Tryon wrote the highly popular, supernatural thriller "The Other", which he adapted to the screen the following year, and then switched full time to his eventually more successful writing career. His novel "Harvest Home" was made into a 1978 TV movie "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home", and his "Crowned Heads" was adapted in part for the 1978 Billy Wilder film, "Fedora".
Tall, ruggedly handsome leading man of the 1950s and 60s who after a 16-year career gave up acting in 1971 to write the best-selling novels "Crowned Heads" and "Harvest Home". After beginning in a stock theatre company as a set painter and assistant manager, and later becoming a production assistant with NBC-TV, the Yale-educated Tryon entered film in 1955 with "Scarlet Hour". He appeared in mostly forgettable fare including "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (1958) (as a stone-faced alien), and as the title character in the 1958 Walt Disney TV series "Texas John Slaughter". The height of his acting career was the starring role in Otto Preminger's "The Cardinal" (1963). In 1971, Tryon wrote the highly popular, supernatural thriller "The Other", which he adapted to the screen the following year, and then switched full time to his eventually more successful writing career. His novel "Harvest Home" was made into a 1978 TV movie "The Dark Secret of Harvest Home", and his "Crowned Heads" was adapted in part for the 1978 Billy Wilder film, "Fedora".
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CAST: (feature film)
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Education
Notes
"When I began writing all that I had going for me was that I could type 80 words per minute, I could spell and I liked words. But in doing it, I found that the real reward was the writing itself, working at it day by day and finally accomplishing something--that was it. To have a book published is one of the most exciting things that can happen to you. Infinitely more rewarding than acting." --Thomas Tryon, quoted in his obituary in The New York Times, September 5, 1991.
Among his ancestors was William Tryon, a Tory who was Governor of New York before and during the American Revolution.
Awarded the Prix Femina de Belgique (1964)
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