Beleaguered character actor Tom Ewell, the unlikely film and TV star with the trademark lumpy figure and droopy, lugubrious mug, was born Samuel Yewell Tompkins on April 29, 1909, in Kentucky. His family tried to steer him towards a law career but he chose the path of acting instead after becoming involved in college productions at the University of Wisconsin. Ewell began his career at the age of 19 in summer stock roles, marking his professional stage debut in the play "The Spider" in 1928, before making an emphatic move to New York three years later. A former salesman at Macy's, he found an "in" with the famed Actors Studio lasted just a year, but his marriage to Marjorie Sanborn on May 5, 1948, endured a lifetime and produced one son. Tom's health declined sharply in his final years and he died on September 12, 1994, of complications from a number of maladies at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. He was 85. Ewell's mother outlived him, passing away in 1998 at the age of 109.
Was a charter member of the Owensboro High School Rose Curtain Players in 1923.
Was inducted in the Owensboro High School Hall of Fame in 2003.
Performed "The Seven Year Itch" 750 times on Broadway before portraying in the 1955 movie version.
Ex-son-in-law of George Abbott.
He claimed never to have seen any of his films, including The Seven Year Itch , and had only ever seen glimpses of himself on the screen when his wife was watching television. He said he suffered from an acute inferiority complex and could not bear to see himself on screen as he was too critical of himself.
At the time of his death on September 12, 1994, the 85-year-old Ewell was survived by his 105-year-old mother Martine Yewell Tompkins. She died on March 6, 1998 at the age of 109.
