| Frankie THOMAS jr |
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Frankie Thomas jr nacque il 9 aprile del 1921 a New York da una famiglia di attori e divenne famoso per la sua interpretazione dell'astronauta Tom Corbett una fortunata serie radiofonica ambientata nel 24º secolo che fu girata negli anni '50.
Frankie girò 16 film dal 1934 al 1942 e quando il fortunato serial radiofonico terminò nel 1955, si dedicò alla scrittura e al bridge che aveva imparato da bambino vedendolo giocare dai suoi genitori.
Iniziò a giocare a bridge con un amico attore Stephen Chase che era un Life Master e sfruttando la sua immagine pubblica si dedicò all'insegnamento con grande successo e creò anche una sua rivista specializzata "The Bridge Teacher's Quarterly" oltre a divenire coeditore della popolarissima "Popular Bridge".
Scrittore appassionato, lanciò due libri "Sherlock Holmes, Bridge detective" e "Il ritorno di Sherlock Holmes, Bridge detective" ai quali fece seguire la fortunata serie dei "Pasticci di Holmes" che si concluse nel 2005.
Nel mentre portava avanti la sua carriera di giocatore ed insegnante di Bridge, si sposò con Virginia Thomas della quale rimase vedovo nel 1997, e si misurò anche nel campo degli investimenti.
Scomparve l'11 maggio del 2006, quando assieme al suo collega ed amico Jan Merlin aveva anche numerosi fans che avevano seguito appassionatamente le sue fantascientifiche avventure nella Guardia Solare.
Frank
Thomas, Jr. was born on April 9, 1921 into a show business family. Not only were
his parents, Frank M. Thomas and Mona Bruns, actors, but so was an uncle.
Thomas got into acting almost by accident. His mother brought him to a theater where she performed an audition.
He is famous for his interpretation of Tom Corbett was set in the 24th century. Mars and Venus are colonized, and space travel is commonplace. The Solar Guard safeguards the solar system, and officers from the Solar Guard are trained at Space Academy.
Tom Corbett, Roger Manning and Astro are cadets at the Academy, under the tutelage of Captain Strong and Dr. Joan Dale. Their ship is the Polaris.
When the show ended, Thomas moved into writing. He wrote for a show called My True Story, and was then the lead writer on a radio show called Theater Five. When that program failed, Thomas decided to start a career playing bridge.
He started going to tournaments with a friend, actor Stephen Chase, who as a Life Master, and they began to win a lot. And then they started teaching bridge in department stores - the first time anyone had ever done this. The classes were hugely successful. Next, he took over the editorship of The Bridge Teacher's Quarterly, and he became an associate editor of a magazine called Popular Bridge.
He also started to write books. His first two books published were Sherlock Holmes, Bridge Detective and then, Sherlock Holmes, Bridge Detective Returns. Then he started on Sherlock Holmes pastiches, with over 13 of these published...the last in 2005.
How did he become interested in Sherlock Holmes? He told Tom Weaver: "When I was a very small boy, a friend of my father's was A. Romaine Callender, who had been with William Gillette when Gillette toured in Sherlock Holmes. He got me a ...free ticket and I saw Gillette play Sherlock Holmes? his last performance on Broadway. I was knee-high to a grass-hopper, but I was intriguedby this character."
Meanwhile, Thomas had grown tired of all the traveling needed in his bridge playing/teaching career, and resigned that to move into the investment field. He had married and had step-children.
And then, in 1993, when he was 72, he was invited to be one of the guest stars at a convention of Old Time Radio enthusiasts. It was the first reunion of actors Frankie, Jan Merlin, Al Markim and Ed Bryce, with their original announcer Jackson Beck from the Tom Corbett radio series, and they performed a radio enactment.
Frankie and Jan Merlin became regulars on the convention circuit after that, always meeting and enthralling enthusiastic fans.
Frankie's last public appearance was with Jan Merlin at the 2006 Williamsburg Film Festival in which they enacted a Merlin-written script, "Project Enigma," with the help of a few pros - Ben Cooper, Jimmy Lydon, and several amateur actors.
He dead in 2006.