The Tommy Kelly Centennial

A quick squib to note the centennial of the birth of child actor Tommy Kelly (1925-2016).

Kelly is most notable for beating out 25,000 other aspirants for the plum title role in Norman Taurog’s 1938 movie of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The kid was a publicist’s dream. 100% Irish (all four grandparents from the Auld Sod), he grew up in the Bronx, and was said to have been one of a dozen siblings (though his Times obit a decade ago gave the more reasonable number of five). This was the Depression, and all this stuff played well. The Dead End Kids had made their screen debut the previous year.

Better, we have another Irish Kelly to add our roster which already includes Harry Kelly, The Five Kellys featuring young Gene Kelly; Grace Kelly and her uncles George Kelly and Walter C. Kelly; the other family that gave us Nancy Kelly, Jack Kelly et al.; yet another Kelly family that gave us Judy King and Mona Ray; the “Rolling Mill Man” J.W. Kelly; Patsy Kelly; Gregory Kelly; Emmett Kelly; Mike “King” Kelly, James T. Kelley, Paul Kelly, Kitty Kelly, and Margaret Kelly, 

Unfortunately, Kelly’s screen career was all downhill from there. For whatever reason, the movie was not a hit, maybe because Kelly was not a marquee name, maybe because what’s a kid with a Bronx accent doing in 19th century Missouri? The same year he played the title role in Peck’s Bad Boy with the Circus (1938) opposite Edgar Kennedy, which seemed better calculated. He was even better cast in They Shall Have Music (1939) about a youth program at Henry Street Settlement, though Gene Reynolds had the lead in that one. Kelly had a prominent (but extremely short) moment as a drummer boy in Gone With the Wind (1939). Also of note (and logical) were roles in Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941), and Mug Town (1942) with the Dead End Kids and The Little Tough Guys. In between, he had good supporting and ensemble roles in Curtain Call (1940), Irene (1940), Military Academy (1940), Gallant Sons (1941), Nice Girl? (1941), and Double Date (1941).

Now 18, Kelly opted to serve in World War Two, joining the infantry.

When he returned to Hollywood in 1947 at the age of 22, things were very different. No longer a child, and scarcely a star to begin with, he was unable to get roles larger than bit parts, most of them unnamed. His movies from this period are The Beginning or the End (1947), The Fabulous Texan (1947), He Walked By Night (1948), Adventure in Baltimore (1949), Battleground (1949), The West Point Story (1950), and The Magnificent Yankee (1950).

Seeing the writing on the wall (and having married in 1948), Kelly left Hollywood and finished his education, eventually earning a Ph.D. He was a teacher, counselor and administrator in local public school systems for a number of years. Plenty of occasion to learn to deal with the next generation of Tom Sawyers and Peck’s Bad Boys! Later he ran international schools in Liberia and Venezuela, and had administrative jobs with the Peace Corps and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He was 90 at the time of his death.