Spacemens Luck

 

Where Tom Corbett, Captain Video, CMDR Corry and Other Spacemen Still Live

Tom Corbett Space Cadet Show Logo

Space Travel Hero Role: Television and Radio series “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” 1950 – 1955. Fifty years after the series ended, he was still making personal appearances as a result of that role.

What They Are Doing Today: Tom passed away on May 11, 2006 at age 85 only a few weeks before he was to appear as a special guest at the 2006 Worldcon in Los Angeles (LA Con IV).

Biography
Frankie Thomas began acting on Broadway in the early 1930′s and soon went to Hollywood, where he appeared in films including Tim Tyler’s Luck (1937 serial), Boys Town (1938), the Dead End Kids at Military School (1939), Flying Cadets (1941) and The Major and the Minor (1942) as well as four Nancy Drew movies.

Young Frankie Thomas

In the fall of 1950 he became the idol of millions of children when he won the lead role as Tom Corbett (command cadet) in Television series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet as a member of the elite Solar Guard, 400 years in the future. It is noteworthy that he beat out other actors for the role including Jack Lemmon. It is this role that he is most famous for, especially to classic space travel enthusiasts for which this site is dedicated.

Former fellow cast member Jan Merlin (wisecracking Cadet Roger Manning) once said that “Frankie looked like the all-American boy … Everyone in the room knew immediately this was the guy we were going to get.”

The show was broadcast on the Television CBS, ABC, NBC and the DuMont networks. Additionally, a 51 episode series was aired on radio during 1952. The radio versions were different adventures than those that ran on Television. These shows were two part episodes that began on Tuesday and were completed on Thursday each week. All the main actors that played in the Television series also played those same roles on the radio version.

Frankie Thomas as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet

Tom Corbett, Roger Manning and Astro were cadets at the Space Academy where they were in training to become members of the elite Solar Guard. The adventures took place at the Academy in classrooms, bunk rooms, aboard their training ship the rocket cruiser Polaris, and on alien worlds in and out of our solar system around nearby stars.

Like most child actors, Frankie Thomas never made the transition to adult roles. Despite the fact that he was 34 years old at the end of the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet series. His Tom Corbett character was supposedly a teenager attending Space Academy to become an officer of the Solar Guard. Frankie Thomas quit acting at the end of the series in 1955. Over the years following his role as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet he worked as a television and radio writer, bridge instructor and author of mystery novels.

Frankie Thomas attending October 2005 Friends of Old Time Radio Convention

By 1956 Frankie Thomas would go on to appear in a few radio series such as Suspense and become a TV and radio writer as well as a novelist. He also turned his hobby of bridge into a career, becoming the editor of several bridge-related periodicals and president of the American Bridge Teachers’ Association. He wrote several books on bridge. Thomas traveled the country to compete in bridge tournaments and to instruct in the game’s strategies.

In the late 1970s he began writing and publishing novels and short-story collections featuring the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes including: Sherlock Holmes And The Golden Bird (1979), Sherlock Holmes And The Sacred Sword (1980), Secret Cases Of Sherlock Holmes (1984), Sherlock Holmes And The Treasure Train (1985), Sherlock Holmes And The Masquerade Murders (1986), Sherlock Holmes And The Bizarre Alibis (1989), Sherlock Holmes And The Panamanian Girls (2000), Sherlock Holmes Mystery Tales (2001) and short stories Secret Files Of Sherlock Holmes (2002).

Frankie Thomas and Jan Merlin (Cadet Roger Manning) at the Williamsburg Film Festival 2006

During the last decade of his life Thomas appeared as a celebrity guest at conventions on old-time radio, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the Golden Age of Television. He often appeared wearing his original Tom Corbett uniform, which he still fit into.

Frankie Thomas died in 2006 at age 85 at a Sherman Oaks, California hospital of respiratory failure, following a stroke. His Tom Corbett role seems to have been the one that most pleased him. At his request, he was buried in his Tom Corbett, Space Cadet costume. He rests beside his parents at Forest Lawn Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills. His wife, Virginia, had preceded him in death in 1997.

Born: Frank M. Thomas, Jr. April 9, 1921
Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death: May 11, 2006 (aged 85)
Other name(s) Frankie Thomas, Frank M. Thomas, Jr.
Years active: 1934 – 1955
Spouse(s): Virginia Thomas (? – 1997) (her death)

List of Whatever Became Of Episodes: