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Thomas Tryon
Newest Release
It was Noel Coward’s partner, Gertrude Lawrence, who encouraged Tom to try acting. He made his Broadway debut in 1952 in the chorus of the musical “Wish You Were Here.” He also worked in television at the time, but as a production assistent. In 1955 he moved to California to try his hand at the movies, and the next year made his film debut in “The Scarlet Hour” (1956). Tom was cast in the title role of the Disney TV series “Texas John Slaughter” (1958) that made him something of a household name. He appeared in several horror and science fiction films: “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” (1958) and “Moon Pilot” (1962) and in westerns: ‘Three Violent People’ (1956) and ‘Winchester ’73’ (1967). He was part of the all-star cast in ‘The Longest Day’ (1962), a film of the World War II generation, credited with saving 20th Century Fox Studios, after the disaster of ‘Cleopatra.” He considered his best role to be in ‘In Harm’s Way’(1965), which is also regarded as one of the better films about World War II.
While filming the title role in ‘The Cardinal’ (1962), Tom suffered from Otto Preminger’s Teutonic directing style and became physically ill. Nevertheless, Tom was nominated for a Golden Globe award in 1963. He appeared with Marilyn Monroe in her final film, “Something’s Got to Give” (1962), but the studio fired Monroe after three weeks, and the film was never finished. That experience, along with the “Cardinal” ordeal, left Tom wary of studio games and weary at waiting around for the phone to ring.
After viewing the film “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) Tom was inspired to write his own horror novel, and in 1971 Alfred Knopf published “The Other.” It became an instant bestseller and was turned into a movie in 1972, which Tom wrote and produced. Thereafter, despite occasional film and TV offers, Tom gave up acting to write fiction fulltime. This he did eight to ten hours a day, with pencil, on legal-sized yellow tablets. Years later, he graduated to an IBM Selectric.
The Other was followed by Lady (1975) which concerns the friendship between and eight-year-old boy and a mysterious widow in 1930s New England. His book Crowned Heads became an inspiration for the Billy Wilder film “Fedora” (1978), and a miniseries with Bette Davis was made from his novel Harvest Home (1978). All That Glitters (1986), a quintette of stories about thinly disguised Hollywood greats and near-greats followed. Night of the Moonbow (1989), tells of a boy driven to violence by the constant harassment he endures at a summer camp. Night Magic, about an urban street magician with wonderous powers, written shortly before his death in 1991, was posthumously published in 1995. The dust jackets and end papers of Tom’s books, about which he took unusual care, are excellent examples of his gifts as an artist and graphic designer, further testimony to the breadth of his talents.
Book List in Order: 9 titles
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Harvest Home
- May-1973
- / Horror
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In a country village, a family of New Yorkers encounters a chilling ancient rite.
After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New Englan...
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All That Glitters
- Sep-1986
- / General Fiction
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The interlocking lives of five Hollywood leading ladies spawn “tragedies, dark doings, jealousies, murder, passion on the grand scale” (Chicago Tribune). Charlie Caine has been to too many Hollywood funerals. The studio system is lo...
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Crowned Heads
- Oct-1987
- / Horror
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Though the greats of Hollywood may fade, their secrets live on foreverFedora is dead, and movies will never be the same. A star since the early days of Hollywood, she survived the business for an unprecedented four decades before retiring to Crete. A...
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The Night Of The Moonbow
- Jul-1989
- / General Fiction
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In this spellbinding novel of idyllic childhoods torn apart by the blossoming terror of child pitted against child, Tryon spins a tale of the hidden horrors that lurk behind children's innocence, and an inevitable explosion of evil....
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The Wings Of The Morning
- Oct-1990
- / General Fiction
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"Gripping...Fine story-telling."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Pequot Landing, Connecticut, is not the place--nor is this the time--for love. Yet Aurora Talcott and Sinjin Grimes are struck with it as by a thunderbolt--only to be violently separated by their... -
In The Fire Of Spring
- May-1992
- / General Fiction
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"Unforgettable." The Washington Post Book World.
The Civil War is still twenty years away when Rose, an escaped mulatto slave girl, arrives in the town of Pequot Landing. Soon after, a school for "colored misses" is established. This fuels a fires... -
Night Magic
- Jun-1995
- / General Fiction
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An amateur magician is approached by a mysterious old man who offers him a taste of true sorcery and is torn between the human life he has been following and the dark world of mystical arts that threatens to overtake him and the woman he loves. 75,00...
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