Tom Tryon, 65; Gave Up Films to Be Novelist

Tom Tryon, the tall, dark and handsome leading man of such films as “The Cardinal” who abandoned the silver screen to become a best-selling novelist, died Wednesday. He was 65.

Tryon died at his home in the Hollywood Hills of stomach cancer.

His books included the psychological thrillers “The Other” and “Harvest Home,” and novels based on his Hollywood experiences such as “Crowned Heads” and “All That Glitters.”

Tryon’s most recent novel, “The Wings of the Morning,” was published last fall. It is the first of a series of historical novels that took him 15 years to write, according to his publicist, Judy Hilsinger. The second in the series, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” is scheduled for publication next spring.

Tryon had also completed a children’s novel, “The Adventures of Opal and Cupid,” that is due out next spring.

A native of Wethersfield, Conn., Tryon earned a fine arts degree with honors from Yale University and served in the Navy in World War II. After three years of studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his Broadway debut in 1952 in the musical “Wish You Were Here.”

Arriving in Hollywood on April Fool’s Day, 1955, Tryon quickly landed roles in several movies and more than 100 television shows. For three seasons, he had the title role in the television series “Texas John Slaughter.”

Ironically, Tryon’s greatest film role--in director Otto Preminger’s “The Cardinal” in 1963--was the one that drove him out of the movie business.

“It was a very painful experience, and even today it’s painful to reflect upon or dwell upon,” Tryon told an interviewer in 1989. “He (Preminger) treated all actors abominably unless they were so big that they could just stomp on him. . . . I saw him literally destroy actors, reduce them to babbling idiots.”

Tryon said Preminger once fired and rehired him within an hour and “repeatedly berated me in front of the whole company, calling me a lousy actor.”

Preminger reportedly boasted to friends that Tryon should thank him for launching Tryon’s successful writing career.

Tryon had built modest success in acting during the 1950s and 1960s. But he zoomed to literary success with his first effort, “The Other,” a horror thriller published in 1971. The best-seller was made into a movie, which Tryon produced.

Conceding that he had hated promotional tours for movies, Tryon nevertheless made personal appearances to promote his books.

“At first I was against it,” he said. “But once I got started, I was insatiable. I’ll do anything to sell books.”

The books that followed all sold as well as the first, and Tryon enjoyed alternating the dark thrillers set in his childhood New England environs with his Hollywood novels featuring fictionalized versions of his favorite stars. The legendary Mae West, for example, who he claimed had once tried to seduce him, became Babe in his book “All That Glitters.”

Despite his literary success, Tryon struggled with drugs and alcohol. He had been active for the last decade in Alcoholics Anonymous, and was one of the first celebrities to talk publicly about addiction.

“I just felt that if in relating my own experiences I could help anybody, then it was worthwhile,” he said two years ago. “And today the problem is so prevalent anyway, you’re looked at askance if you don’t have a history of drugs and alcohol.”

Tryon is survived by two brothers, Lane of West Hartford, Conn., and William of Farmington, Conn.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to Mount St. Mary’s School of Nursing, 12001 Chalon Road, Los Angeles 90049.