Tony Thomas Remembered

by James "Pav" Pavelek

Tony Thomas loved movies and the people involved in making them. He wasn't content to keep his enthusiasm to himself but dedicated his life to interviewing his idols, broadcasting the results on Canadian radio, and writing an extraordinary number of books for Citadel Press's legendary "The Films of..." series. The film that changed his life was The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. He co-authored the book on Flynn and produced the vinyl recording of the Erich Korngold score as preserved from a radio broadcast of musical excerpts conducted by the composer with narration by Basil Rathbone. Side Two of the record contained the last interview with Flynn before his death at age 50. It is both poignant and revealing in that Flynn comes across as a sort of modern-day Ulysses scorning the fates who betrayed him, yet still full of hope despite the ravages of alcohol and drugs that would bring about his end.

Fortunately for the rest of us, Tony did not imagine himself to be Errol Flynn, though that actor's many roles as the definite swashbuckler no doubt provided a source of perpetual joy. Tony produced the album of the wonderful score to that actor's last really good film, The Adventures of Don Juan, a very funny send-up of Flynn's own screen image featuring one of Max Steiner's best works. (It was later used to camp up George Hamilton's dual role in Zorro, the Gay Blade.)

I met Tony for the first time at the home of Max Steiner in Beverly Hills in 1978. I had recently relocated to sunny L.A. and was invited to an informal dinner party hosted by Lee, Max's widow. Al Bender and his wife were there along with composer/film music scholar John Morgan. I had done some cover illustrations for Al's Max Steiner Journal and begun chronicling the career of Miklos Rozsa on audio and film as a student at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. Tony was handsome enough to have been an actor himself, his baritone voice (which can be heard on the recording of Rozsa's The Vintner's Daughter) would seem to confirm this, but he seemed content to write and produce. The highlight of the party would often be listening to some new recording of music by Max or Erich that Tony had just produced. Tony wrote lyrics to the love theme for Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in their last film together They Died with Their Boots On, music by Max Steiner. These were limited edition items labeled "not for public sale" and have since become valuable collector's items.

Once I got a call from Tony to do the typesetting for a 2-record set of Bird of Paradise, music by Steiner. I designed a logo for his Medallion Record label and did the artwork for Music for Westerns (Steiner again). Both were produced by Lesley Anderson and Mike Snell of New York. I distinctly remember going to Tony's home in Glendale when the TV was on and we listened silently to Jerry Goldsmith's main title to Rio Conchos. I had brought a proposed layout for Hans Salter's Scarlet Street, featuring my own painting of Joan Bennett, the film's star. Ms. Bennett was still then living and Tony felt my rendering did not flatter her enough and opted to use a black and white glamour still instead. He was a perfectionist in everything he did and put forth his argument with such charm you'd end up agreeing with him. He also brought the music of Herbert Stothart out of mothballs when he produced a 2-record set containing the music from the original M-G-M Mutiny on the Bounty, Viva Villa, Anna Karenina, etc. My own favorite of these many productions was the release of original music masters to Rozsa's The Lost Weekend, containing the composer's three alternate finales.

Polly Jo Baker, Greg Nestor, Albert Dominguez, Dan Robbins are but a few of the many younger talents that Tony helped nurture in his recordings. He never had the funds to produce the large-scale, fully orchestrated stereo re- recordings pioneered by George Korngold and Charles Gerhardt (his contemporaries of the time), but he achieved much with little. His first book on film music composers entitled Music for the Movies contains interviews, candid photos of the musicians at work, and probably the first extensive discography of movie music then assembled.

I last saw Tony at the memorial for his friend Miklos Rozsa two years ago at the Hotel Bel-Air. He had aged very little in the intervening 17 years so it came as a complete surprise to me when Dan Robbins called me to inform me of his death on July 8 at age 79. He had been working on a new CD of music by Alfred Newman to include suites from The Razor's Edge, The Robe, The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Diary of Anne Frank.

Tony Thomas lived a full life and was generous enough to share his many interests with the rest of us. While he lacked the easy scholarship of a Christopher Palmer, he was a sure and thorough documentarian in all his writing. He preserved the thoughts and reminiscences of everybody from Francis X. Bushman to Walt Disney and pioneered the recording of film music on record when it was far from being fashionable or even profitable. His books on The Films of Twentieth Century Fox, The Great Adventure Films and the films of celebrities too numerous to mention here will help educate future students of film. We can all be thankful that he became the very special person that he was.

James "Pav" Pavelek

San Jose, California

22 July 97