Tom London
Birth Name:
Leonard Thomas Clapham
Height:
187 cm
A character actor and veteran of hundreds of Hollywood westerns, Tom London seemed to be born in the saddle. As a trick rider he performed riding specialties in a number of films. His career started in the teens and through the 1920s he alternated between good guy and bad. He made appearances in non-westerns such as À l'ouest rien d...
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A character actor and veteran of hundreds of Hollywood westerns, Tom London seemed to be born in the saddle. As a trick rider he performed riding specialties in a number of films. His career started in the teens and through the 1920s he alternated between good guy and bad. He made appearances in non-westerns such as À l'ouest rien de nouveau (1930) and La blonde platine (1931), but westerns were his mainstay. When the "B" western disappeared in the mid-'50s, so did his career. He appeared in only a handful of film for the rest of the decade. Show less «
[on working with Ken Maynard] I did six pictures with him, then refused offers after that. He was mean to his horses and mean to the people ...Show more »
[on working with Ken Maynard] I did six pictures with him, then refused offers after that. He was mean to his horses and mean to the people he thought he could buffalo. He was often half drunk on a picture and sometimes didn't even show up. Show less «
[on the many cowboy stars he worked with over his 50-year career] I got along with all of them, with the exception of one [Ken Maynard]. I e...Show more »
[on the many cowboy stars he worked with over his 50-year career] I got along with all of them, with the exception of one [Ken Maynard]. I especially liked Bill Elliott [aka Wild Bill Elliott], and although a lot of people found Allan Lane [aka Rocky Lane] too hard to work with because he was too much of a perfectionist, I enjoyed working with him on around 12 pictures, and respected that he tried to make his films stand out over the usual little western. One of my favorites was Sunset Carson. He encouraged me by giving me his sidekick role in some of his pictures. A star I owe lot to is Gene Autry. I made around 18 pictures with him and he was one of the nicest guys to work with. He always saw I got decent characters to play, and, in Riders in the Sky (1949) I got a great part playing a cowpoke in a big death scene. I've been told this was the best acting of my whole career. Later on, when I auditioned for some television work, I would bring along a 16mm print of that scene and show it on a casting agent's wall. Most of the time, I got the part. Show less «
Tom London's Photos
