Tom Tryon

Otto Preminger made his life hell during filming of "The Cardinal".

He eventually quit acting to write, his book "The Other" was a best seller and a film.

He’s actually quite good in The Cardinal. A bit wooden but it worst for a sexually frustrated Irish priest who’s detached himself from his feelings and obvious gay urges. It’s actually interesting when two older Cardinals take an interest in him And help further his career. It’s clear that they’re infatuated with his good looks.

[quote] I didn't know who he was before today

You must be a millennial. He was known both far and wide.

I'm not much familiar with his acting but I have read three of his books: "The Other", "Crowned Heads", and "Harvest Home." I liked them all, although sometimes the story he was telling was absurd. Like in a segment of "Crowned Heads" called "Fedora", which was about a Garboesque actress who never seemed to age. And "Harvest Home", which is about a small, isolated Connecticut village that adheres to the "old ways" and practiced ghastly fertility rites that occur within a every seven years ritual called "Harvest Home." His books were entertaining reading.

Had Marilyn Monroe finished Something's Got to Give, you'd have known who he was. His character was an important plot point.

Tom tried on gay porn superstar Casey Donovan for a few years, but Tom was in the closet and couldn't handle Casey's fame as a known celluloid cocksucker.

He became a pretty successful writer in the 80's. Couple of novels made in to TV movies.

I loved Harvest Home...great book and yes he was gorgous

Definitely a gorgeous man. I've read two of his books, and liked Harvest Home best, although The Other was nothing to be ashamed of, either. He played the lead in Disney's tv western "Texas John Slaughter" which ran for a few years in the late 50s.

Wasn’t he physically abusive to Casey Donovan?

Here's the entire NBC miniseries [italic]The Dark Secret of Harvest Home[/italic] (1978). One of the YouTube commenters grew up in the Ohio town where it was filmed and said he scavenged Bette Davis's cigarette butts as souvenirs.

I haven't read Crowned Heads in Decades, r4, but I remember enjoying it even with the unlikely plot points. I think the gimmick was just how he tied the four stories together. I saw Fedora when it came out and it just felt incomplete without the other stories.

I liked LADY.

He tried the same Crowned Heads gimmick with All That Glitters with lesser results...

Wikipedia states being HIV-Positive caused his death in 1991.

“Tryon died on September 4, 1991, at the age of 65 in Los Angeles, California.[16] The alleged cause of death was "stomach cancer", but Tryon's literary executor, C. Thomas Holloway, stated that Tryon's stomach cancer was caused by his being HIV-positive. Tryon asked to keep this private. When Tryon's lover Clive Clerk explained, "Tom didn't want his readers or his relatives to know," Holloway disapproved, writing, "I see it as Tom's selfish silence helped the Dark Ages continue into the millennium." [17]”

My goodness but the DL must be slipping. All these comments and not a single picture of shirtless Tom Tryon?

In addition to his other claims to fame, Tryon is familiar to fans of '50s B&W sci-fi as the alien-possessed husband in the classic [italic] I Married A Monster From Outer Space [/italic] (1958). Gloria Talbott played the unfortunate bride. It's quite a good movie of its genre, and Tom is beyond handsome.

He gets mentioned a few times in The Andy Warhol Diaries because he lived across the street from Andy, who was slightly spooked by him because of his horror novels,

He's very comparable to John Gavin IMO. Incredibly handsome but oh so dull.

He came from a wealthy Connecticut family that owned a popular Brooks Bros. style men's haberdashery in downtown Hartford called Stackpole & Tryon, long gone now.

R9, I remember reading Harvest Home when it was published. I was in high school, and, IIRC, I enjoyed it but preferred The Other at the time. I should re-read them now. They were both scary page-turners to me at the time, but I've seen and read a lot of horror fiction since then. Maybe my now-jaded reaction would be different.

R11, I watched the trailer for The Dark Secret of Harvest Home on YT. God, it looks awful! Not even trashy-fun, just awful. Also, the lead female (besides Bette Davis) is too old for the role she will eventually play in the story ... if I remember the story correctly.

R13, I know that I read “Lady” but I can’t remember what it was about. Willa Cather’s novel, “The Lost Lady” was good but it was like lady fiction.

I remember his appearance on The Tonight Show when his latest book came out and, strangely, he denigrated it saying that the book he was then writing was so much better. Was he high? I don’t remember Carson’s reaction.

I've posted this before but... my ex was his boyfriend for a while, said he couldn't keep seeing him because TT was just so incredibly kinky. And weird. He also said he was absolutely gorgeous.

It was a rather low-key mood piece as I recall, r20. I liked it for that.

Another generically handsome actor Hollywood cast as cowboys or soldiers in TV and films during g the 50s and 60s. He was dull and has a total of 39 credits on IMDB most of which precede his role as The Cardinal (1963). He appeared in another Preminger film In Harm's Way (1965)

Can you.....or your ex.....please elaborate, r22?

He was gorgeous. Loved him in The Cardinal. Being directed by Otto Preminger must have been interesting. Tom was a good actor and a good writer. How many people can master two arts?

The late 1950s was prime harvest time for those drop dead hunks who couldn't act their way out of a cockatoo cage.

I really enjoyed The Other (which was like reading Stephen King before Stephen King books existed), Harvest Home and Lady, but I thought Crowned Heads and All That Glitters were so trashy, they were unreadable.

The Night of the Moonbow was an attempt to go back to his original suspense approach from his earlier books, but it was so convoluted I gave up after several chapters.

This year I want to take a stab at his The Wings of the Morning.

And yes he was sexy.

Hold me David, I’m scared.

"I haven't read Crowned Heads in Decades, [R4], but I remember enjoying it even with the unlikely plot points. I think the gimmick was just how he tied the four stories together."

The final chapter of "Crowned Head", entitled "Salad Days" was a lovely epilogue featuring all of the doomed characters from the book (Fedora, Lorna Doone, Bobbitt and Willie Marsh) in better days.

Someone said CH was "trashy" and it does contain a lot of over the top scenes but it's still a good read. The most lurid chapters are the ones about Lorna Doone, an aging B-movie sexpot, and Willie Marsh, a revered Golden Age Hollywood star.

Lorna Doone is a pyromaniac, a kleptomaniac and compulsively promiscuous, not necessarily in that order. Running away from legal problems she goes to a Mexican resort where she wreaks havoc and proceeds to crack up in spectacular fashion.

Willie is a star from a bygone era who is lonely and adrift after the death of his domineering, stage mother wife Bea. He's developing a drinking problem and in his loneliness associates with people he would be best to avoid. At a party he meets a young man who says he would like to see his art collection. Willie says he's having a get together soon and that he can come and bring a date if he likes (Willie is not looking for sex; he's just a nice man, a genial host). The young man comes with his date (a brainless hippie bimbo) on the wrong night, but Willie lets them in anyway. A friend of theirs also comes over: a Charles Manson type named Arco. Well, it all turns out very badly for Willie. This chapter is obviously semi-based on the Manson murders and the murder of Ramon Navarro. Navarro also invited some young visitors over and that didn't turn out well for him, either. In both the Navarro case and the Willie Marsh chapter the evil characters were invited over and they both were looking for a score of $5000. In Willie's case it was an antique mirror worth that amount; in poor Navarro's it was cash he supposedly had lying around.

There's also the chapter entitled "Bobbitt." It's about a child star named Bobby Ransom, whose career evaporates when he grows up. He becomes wildly popular, "America's Fantasy Child", after he plays a young English boy named "Bobbitt" in a series of films based on a popular children's book series. Shades of Harry Potter decades before it existed. Tryon seemed prescient in that regard.

[quote] Tom was a good actor and a good writer. How many people can master two arts?

I have to quibble and say that he didn't 'master the art' of acting.

He stood in front of a camera and allowed himself to be photographed. He allowed the film editor to cut out all the messed-up lines.

R27 But few were as stiff, lifeless and devoid of expression and emotion as Tom Tryon. John Gavin, Rock Hudson, Clint Walker, Hugh O'Brian had more charisma.