wow. RIP dude.
RIP
Great movies.
Those were the days. Great movies.
I grew up watching him, and had fond memories of his movies during the 1940’s. What a fun actor and person.
“He Walked By Night” (1948) is an old favorite. Great crime thriller.
Kelly was in the Bronx, the son of Nora and Michael Kelly, a fireman, in humble circumstances.[1] He had twelve siblings.[2] Kelly’s grandparents, all four, were from Ireland.[2]
He began his acting career at the age of twelve when he was selected to play the role of Tom Sawyer in the 1938 movie The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, an adaption of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.[1] Approximately 25000 boys had auditioned for that role and it is said that famous producer David O. Selznick handpicked Kelly for the role.[3] Despite Kelly reaching good critics for his performance, the film was only a poor financial success. He also played the lead role in Peck’s Bad Boy with the Circus later that year as Bill Peck.[4]
In 1939, Tommy Kelly had a small but memorable part in Gone with the Wind, as the crying boy in a band in Atlanta, while the death lists are given out. He played a notable supporting role as Willie in Archie Mayo’s musical film They Shall Have Music (1939), followed by a leading role as a young cadet in the B movie Military Academy (1940). As he reached adulthood, Kelly’s roles in movies were minor and he was often uncredited.[5] He appeared in The Magnificent Yankee[6] in 1950, which turned out to be his last of 19 films before ending his acting career.[5]
As with many other stars, the war years found Tommy in the U.S. Army,[7] where he served in the infantry, not the USO as did some other child stars; he fought in the European theater, participating in the critical campaign for the bridge at Remagen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Kelly_%28actor%29#Early_life_and_career
RIP.