RIP Tom Jones (The One from “The Fantasticks”)

I just heard from the great biographer Eve Golden that Tom Jones (1928-2002) has passed away. Don’t worry, it’s not the Welsh Elvis, but the other one, the one who wrote the book and lyrics for The Fantasticks!

It’s quite possible (probable in fact) that this TJ meant more to me than t’other, on account of this charming, romantic minimalist musical, based on Edmond Rostand’s 1894 Les Romanesquesbut which certainly echoed earlier stuff like the commedia dell’arte. The original 1960 production played for 42 years, and featured Jerry Orbach (best known later as Lenny Brisco on Law and Order), Kenneth Nelson (best known to me from The Boys in the Band), and Rita Gardner, wife of playwright Herb Gardner (A Thousand Clowns), et al. I caught it somewhere around year 30. But I had cherished the show for years, for I had appeared in a high school production of it when it was only 23 years old (five years older than I was at the time). Got all the songs in my head right now, and in my fellow cast-members off-key versions, no less

While I’m sorry to learn about the passing of the 95 year old Mr. Jones, I hope no one will take it amiss if I hijack (oh what the hell, rape) his obituary, by talking about that high school production, which really was, in a minor way, historic. For, it will astound our readers to learn, in the balance of time your correspondent turned out to be only the THIRD most significant literary figure in the cast. True fact! For, also in the production were 1) future Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri; and 2) future Roger Ebert protege, film critic, and blogger Sheila O’Malley. In terms of readership anyway, they both make this battered scribe look like a piker. A couple of years later I dated the latter and fell hard for the former. Tales for another time.

Two other noteworthy people were in the cast: my buddy Matt Mania became a Hollywood grip, whose credits include Grey’s Anatomy (2006-2012), Knives Out (2019), and Don’t Look Up (2021). And my other buddy ChrisFratiello (who played El Gallo) also turned out to be literary (he attended the competitive Iowa Writers Workshop), to appear with Viola Davis in plays at Rhode Island College, and is a comedian — he’s going to lead off my show at QED this coming Wednesday!

“Pictures or it didn’t happen!” as they say on social media, so here are some of my blurry bona fides:

I am amused to note that Jhumpa covered the very show she was in for the school paper. Talk about a conflict of interest!

Jhumpa and myself, grouped left

Sheila and I hammed it up as Mortimer and the Mute. I had just played the lead in Scapino and so uncharacteristically sought a smaller role in The Fantasticks

Even in this photo I can see my bad acting, soon to be beat out of me at the

Matt (as “Matt”) stabs me in the gut, even as he was stabbing me in the back by stealing my girlfriend. It’s taken me 40 years to figure out my revenge and it’s gonna be bitchin’!

Anyway, a roundabout illustration of how one life touches a bunch of others. All of this LIFE happened in and around Mr. Jones’ play. I’ll always thank him for that. RIP!