With the success of Tom Jones at the box office, Henry Fielding's original novel appeared on the best seller list for the first time in history.

Tom Jones came to the stage in a Las Vegas musical starring Nicky Henson in the '70s. The project was brought to film as a rough remake of the 1963 film in 1976 entitled The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones. Henson repeated his role, co-starring with Trevor Howard, Terry-Thomas, Arthur Lowe and Georgia Brown. Joan Collins played a new role, highwaywoman Black Bess.

In 1977, director Tony Richardson returned to Fielding to film the author's Joseph Andrews, another lusty comedy about an innocent country boy who excites the passions of every woman he meets. For the small role of a squire involved in a hunt, Richardson cast Hugh Griffith and even had him dressed, wigged and made up exactly as he had appeared in Tom Jones. By that time, however, the actor's drinking was so out of control that they could only shoot one line at a time before he lost focus.

In The Muppet Movie (1979), Kermit and Miss Piggy don 18th century costumes for a love scene modeled on Tom Jones.

Tom Jones's eating scene is spoofed in the 1981 porn film Same Time Every Year, starring Ron Jeremy.

For the film's 1989 restoration, Richardson cut seven minutes, mostly taking out a few frames here and there. "I would have done then if I'd been smart enough," Richardson would later state. "It's taken me 25 years too not be so dumb."

Greg Fedderly played the title role of Tom Jones in a 1996 Swedish television adaptation.

Much of the material Richardson and John Osborne cut from Fielding's novel was restored for a nearly eight-hour BBC version of the novel titled The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1997). The five-part series starred Max Beesley as Tom, with Brian Blessed as Squire Western, Frances de la Tour as Aunt Western, Samantha Morton as Sophie, Lindsay Duncan as Lady Bellaston and John Sessions as Fielding. The miniseries aired in three one-hour parts in the U.S. on the Arts & Entertainment Network.

SOURCES:
Tony Richardson, The Long-Distance Runner: A Memoir
Susan Sackett, The Hollywood Reporter Book of Box Office Hits
IMDB

by Frank Miller