The economy of Cornwall Coombe is driven by agriculture and the crops especially the corn has been yielding bumper returns. Their daughter Kate can have a horse, Beth can learn new crafts, and Ned has plenty of beautiful landscapes and interesting faces to sketch for his burgeoning career in the galleries back in the city. The people of this quaint little town are eccentric, but friendly. They find this majestic fixer upper in the town of Cornwall Coombe for considerably less than they had expected to pay. Ned and Beth Constantine decide that they want to leave the bustle of New York City for the idyllic life in the country. I was looking at a human skull, and it was from behind the parted jaws that the screams came.” Then I heard the cry again, and once more I froze, for I discovered the thing that voiced it, almost hidden behind the moving greenery. The wind streamed through the gap, tugging the cuffs of my wet pants, brushing at the grass, tearing at the leaves of the new growth around the tree. A mesh of thick vines grew upward from the base, crawling along the withered trunk, sutures trying to close the gaping wound where the sides lay back like flaps of charred flesh. From gnarled roots to blasted top, the large trunk was split open, a dark wound where a bolt of lightning had rent it apart and fire had burned its center out, leaving it hollow. ”Again I heard the cry, and I approached, circling the tree until I was looking at it from the opposite side. 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. Night Magic, about an urban street magician with wondrous powers, written shortly before his death in 1991, was posthumously published in 1995. Night of the Moonbow (1989), tells of a boy driven to violence by the constant harassment he endures at a summer camp. All That Glitters (1986), a quintette of stories about thinly disguised Hollywood greats and near-greats followed. 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). The Other was followed by Lady (1975), which concerns the friendship between an eight-year-old boy and a mysterious widow in 1930s New England. Years later, he graduated to an IBM Selectric. This he did eight to ten hours a day, with pencil, on legal-sized yellow tablets. Thereafter, despite occasional film and TV offers, Tom gave up acting to write fiction full-time. It became an instant bestseller and was turned into a movie in 1972, which Tom wrote and produced. That experience, along with the Cardinal ordeal, left Tom wary of studio games and weary at waiting around for the phone to ring.Īfter viewing the film Rosemary's Baby (1968), Tom was inspired to write his own horror novel, and in 1971 Alfred Knopf published The Other. 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. Nevertheless, Tom was nominated for a Golden Globe award in 1963. While filming the title role in The Cardinal (1962), Tom suffered from Otto Preminger's Teutonic directing style and became physically ill. 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. 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 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). Tom was cast in the title role of the Disney TV series Texas John Slaughter (1958) that made him something of a household name. 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). He also worked in television at the time, but as a production assistant. He made his Broadway debut in 1952 in the chorus of the musical Wish You Were Here. It was Noel Coward’s partner, Gertrude Lawrence, who encouraged Tom to try acting.
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