Ron Thompson
Thompson achieved
Ron Thompson, the unheralded actor who starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play of Charles Gordon There’s no place to be someone Ralph Bakshi played father and son musicians in the animated cult classic american pop,died. He was 83 years old.
said film director Joe Black. hollywood reporter Police said they found Thompson at an apartment in Van Nuys on Saturday afternoon. The two have collaborated on eight feature films so far. I hate horses (2017), chick, man (2018) and suffrage (2023), and Black visited him several times a week to help him.
“For a man his age, he was so full of life, so present,” Black said. He called Thompson “the Sam Jackson to my Tarantino.”
In 1969, Thompson played the role of Shantae Mulligan in an off-Broadway production produced by Joseph Papp. There’s no place to be someonestarring Ron O’Neal, who subsequently accompanied the drama to Broadway and a national tour.
In his review, new york timesMel Gusseau wrote that Thompson was “great” as “a hip-talking, drum-playing white Uncle Tom who wants to be black.”
Robert Fuchs, co-founder of the Negro Ensemble Company, said that he knew Thompson from his days as an actor in New York. THR His best friend said, “He stole that play from everyone.” He said that after seeing this, he had to go backstage to see Thompson. There’s no place to be someone first time.
“As strange as it may seem, Ronnie Thompson is the only white actor I know of who deserves to be included in the history of black theater,” Fuchs wrote on Facebook. “I’ve never seen a white actor so unafraid to go to emotionally naked places, exposing the delusions of white man’s jungle fever and turning it into heartbreaking pathos and high art.”
in american pop (1981), Thompson played the two main characters, Tony Belinsky and his son Pete. He and other actors were filmed for animators, who created cartoon characters from them in a process called rotoscoping, similar to today’s motion capture.
“The live animators were still working. “They blasted the pictures, tracked the actors’ looks, movements, facial expressions, everything, and drew the backgrounds,” Thompson recalled in 2012. The physical resemblance of the actors and their overall performance, facial expressions, everything!”
Born on January 31, 1941 in Louisville, Kentucky, Philip Thompson moved with his family to Miami in 1945. on the waterfrontand appeared as an extra in Jerry Lewis’ productions. bellboy (1960), moved to New York at the age of 19 and appeared in an episode of CBS armstrong circle theater In 1962.
He also recorded a single under the guidance of rockabilly performer Arcel Hickey (“Bluebirds Over the Mountain”) and played a rock singer in the film. brown eye, evil eye (1968).
rear There’s no place to be someone, Thompson co-starred with Henry Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gloria Grahame in William Saroyan’s 1972 revival. time of your life In Los Angeles.
A year later, he won the LA Critics Circle Award for his role in The Movie. Do tigers wear neckties? (A young Al Pacino had won a Tony Award for this role in 1969.)
Thompson recurred on the ABC crime series from 1975 to 1976 as a rookie undercover agent named Knopke. Vallettastarring Robert Blake, he made guest appearances on other shows such as: Mannix, iron side, amy prentis, San Francisco cityscape, bronc, Quincy, Maine, waltons and cagney and lacey.
His film resume included white buffalo (1977), american me (1992) and hiding (1992).
Thompson was romantically involved with the late actress Diane Summerfield (days of our life, black godfather) 1970s. He has no known survivors.
