Tom Nolan (actor)
Encyclopedia
Tom Nolan is an actor
whose career dates back to his work as a child star in the 1950s
.
Nolan was born Bernard Girouard in Montreal
, Canada
, to parents of French
and Irish
descent. His family moved to Beverly
, Massachusetts
, where he immediately started dance classes. His television
debut was as Edward, Prince of Wales
, the son of Henry VIII
, on NBC
's Hallmark Hall of Fame
. The jug-eared lad often portrayed young boys with afflictions, such as a crippled youngster on an episode of My Friend Flicka
(CBS and later NBC) or an asthma
tic on NBC's Medic
, the first television medical series. He portrayed an emotionally disturbed boy in the Child's Play episode of the anthology series Thriller.
At the age of ten, Tommy was cast as Jody O'Connell in the NBC Western
series Buckskin
, which ran for thirty-nine episodes from July 3, 1958 to September 14, 1959. It started as a summer replacement series for The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
and was held over after a month's hiatus in October 1958. It was repeated in the summers of 1959 and 1965.
Sally Brophy
played Jody's widowed mother, Annie O'Connell, who ran the boarding house
in the fictitious town of Buckskin, Montana
. Mike Road
played the marshal
, Tom Sellers. The program was unique in that it was a nonviolent Western seen from a child's perspective, with Tommy narrating each episode while sitting on his corral
fence and playing his harmonica
. The program focused on the interesting individuals who passed through Buckskin in the heyday of the Old West. The series was successful enough for a spin-off comic book
with Nolan's character, and his autograph
was sought at parades, conventions, and other public gatherings. Brophy and Nolan also appeared as a guest on The Ford Show.
After Buckskin (which continued in repeats on an irregular basis until 1965), Nolan appeared in other Western series, such as CBS's Rawhide
and Gunsmoke
, ABC
's The Rifleman
, and Wagon Train
(NBC and ABC). He had a recurring role on CBS's Lassie
as well. Even before Buckskin, Nolan had unsuccessfully sought the lead role in Circus Boy
but lost to Micky Dolenz
, later of The Monkees
. He was unable to find another regular series, and he ended the first half of his acting career with a small part in The Moonshine War
(1970). Nolan has penned articles for Playboy
, the Los Angeles Times
, and the Village Voice, among other publications.
Tom Nolan later had minor roles in Up the Creek (1984), School Spirit (1985), Pretty Woman
(1990), The Thing Called Love (1993), and White Man's Burden (1995). His most recent role was as a valet
in Batman Begins
(2005).
Tom Nolan is sometimes confused with another actor also named Tom Nolan who appeared in Yanks
(1979), Fast Times at Ridgemont High
(1982), and Tequila Sunrise
(1988).
After Buckskin, the then 12-year-old Nolan summed up his situation accordingly:
Nolan resides in the San Fernando Valley
in Los Angeles
.
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
whose career dates back to his work as a child star in the 1950s
1950s
The 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century...
.
Nolan was born Bernard Girouard in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, to parents of French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
descent. His family moved to Beverly
Beverly, Massachusetts
Beverly is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 39,343 on , which differs by no more than several hundred from the 39,862 obtained in the 2000 census. A resort, residential and manufacturing community on the North Shore, Beverly includes Beverly Farms and Prides...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, where he immediately started dance classes. His television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
debut was as Edward, Prince of Wales
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
, the son of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011...
. The jug-eared lad often portrayed young boys with afflictions, such as a crippled youngster on an episode of My Friend Flicka
My Friend Flicka
My Friend Flicka is a 1941 novel by Mary O'Hara, about Ken McLaughlin, the son of a Wyoming rancher, and his horse Flicka. It was the first in a trilogy, followed by Thunderhead and Green Grass of Wyoming . The popular 1943 film version featured a young Roddy McDowall...
(CBS and later NBC) or an asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
tic on NBC's Medic
Medic (TV series)
Medic is an American medical drama that aired on NBC beginning in 1954. Medic was television's first doctor drama to focus attention on medical procedures, establishing the style for later medical series.Created by its principal writer James E...
, the first television medical series. He portrayed an emotionally disturbed boy in the Child's Play episode of the anthology series Thriller.
At the age of ten, Tommy was cast as Jody O'Connell in the NBC Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series Buckskin
Buckskin (TV series)
Buckskin is an American Western television series starring Tom Nolan, Sally Brophy, and Mike Road. The series aired on the NBC from July 3, 1958 until May 25, 1959, followed by summer reruns in 1959 and again in 1965.-Synopsis:...
, which ran for thirty-nine episodes from July 3, 1958 to September 14, 1959. It started as a summer replacement series for The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The Ford Show
The Ford Show is a half-hour comedy/variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired in color on NBC television on Thursday evenings from October 4, 1956 to June 29, 1961....
and was held over after a month's hiatus in October 1958. It was repeated in the summers of 1959 and 1965.
Sally Brophy
Sally Brophy
Sally Cullen Brophy was a Broadway and television actress and college theatre arts professor.Brophy was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She studied at the Royal Academy in London, and then pursued a career on Broadway. In 1951 she was an understudy in Second Threshold. In 1954-1955, she starred as the...
played Jody's widowed mother, Annie O'Connell, who ran the boarding house
Boarding house
A boarding house, is a house in which lodgers rent one or more rooms for one or more nights, and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months and years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and some services, such as laundry and cleaning, may be supplied. They normally provide "bed...
in the fictitious town of Buckskin, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. Mike Road
Mike Road
Mike Road is a voice actor and a Warner Bros. television series contract player whose career dates back to the 1950s....
played the marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
, Tom Sellers. The program was unique in that it was a nonviolent Western seen from a child's perspective, with Tommy narrating each episode while sitting on his corral
Corral
Corral is a town, commune and sea port in Los Ríos Region, Chile. It is located south of Corral Bay. Corral is best known for the forts of Corral Bay, a system of defensive batteries and forts made to protect Valdivia during colonial times. Corral was the headquarters of the system...
fence and playing his harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
. The program focused on the interesting individuals who passed through Buckskin in the heyday of the Old West. The series was successful enough for a spin-off comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
with Nolan's character, and his autograph
Autograph
An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...
was sought at parades, conventions, and other public gatherings. Brophy and Nolan also appeared as a guest on The Ford Show.
After Buckskin (which continued in repeats on an irregular basis until 1965), Nolan appeared in other Western series, such as CBS's Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...
and Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's The Rifleman
The Rifleman
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show, filmed in black-and-white with a half hour running time, ran...
, and Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
(NBC and ABC). He had a recurring role on CBS's Lassie
Lassie
Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
as well. Even before Buckskin, Nolan had unsuccessfully sought the lead role in Circus Boy
Circus Boy
Circus Boy is an American action/adventure/drama series that aired in prime time on NBC, and then on ABC, from 1956 to 1958. It was then rerun by NBC on Saturday mornings, from 1958 to 1960...
but lost to Micky Dolenz
Micky Dolenz
George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. is an American actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as a member of the 1960s made-for-television band The Monkees.-Biography:...
, later of The Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
. He was unable to find another regular series, and he ended the first half of his acting career with a small part in The Moonshine War
The Moonshine War
The Moonshine War is a 1970 film directed by Richard Quine, based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard. It starred Patrick McGoohan, Richard Widmark, Alan Alda, Will Geer, John Schuck, and Teri Garr....
(1970). Nolan has penned articles for Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
, the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, and the Village Voice, among other publications.
Tom Nolan later had minor roles in Up the Creek (1984), School Spirit (1985), Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman
Pretty Woman is a 1990 romantic comedy film set in Los Angeles, California. Written by J.F. Lawton and directed by Garry Marshall, this motion picture features Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, and also Hector Elizondo, Ralph Bellamy, and Jason Alexander in supporting roles. Roberts played the only...
(1990), The Thing Called Love (1993), and White Man's Burden (1995). His most recent role was as a valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
in Batman Begins
Batman Begins
Batman Begins is a 2005 American superhero action film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman, along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson,...
(2005).
Tom Nolan is sometimes confused with another actor also named Tom Nolan who appeared in Yanks
Yanks
Yanks is a 1979 John Schlesinger film, set in World War II in the village of Dobcross, in Greater Manchester, England. Starring Richard Gere, Vanessa Redgrave, William Devane, Lisa Eichhorn, Rachel Roberts and Tony Melody....
(1979), Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a 1982 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written by Cameron Crowe and adapted from his 1981 book of the same name...
(1982), and Tequila Sunrise
Tequila Sunrise (film)
Tequila Sunrise is an American crime thriller film written and directed by Robert Towne, and starring Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, with support from Raúl Juliá, J. T...
(1988).
After Buckskin, the then 12-year-old Nolan summed up his situation accordingly:
"They teach you to succeed, but you're unprepared for failure. You're led to expect fame, but no one tells you about the rejection waiting at the end of the trip. Something fantastic had been given to me, then taken away, leaving a big hollow place at the center of my twelve-year-old life."
Nolan resides in the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.