Tallahassee Democrat, FL
July 6 2005
Actor Thomajan, 87, dies
He had a long career with Hollywood titans, then spent his last years
in Monticello
By Mark Hinson
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER
Feisty character actor Edd “Guy” Thomajan – who appeared in such
films as “Panic in the Streets,” “Miracle on 34th Street” and “The
Pink Panther” – died at his home in Monticello on June 28. He was 87.
Thomajan, who was also a veteran of World War II, retired to the
woods of North Florida to build his own house in the 1980s. A
lifelong bachelor, he left behind no family members or survivors.
The diminutive Thomajan had a scrappy personality and salty
vocabulary, but he could switch from crusty curmudgeon to charming
gentleman in a matter of seconds. Around his friends, he enjoyed
telling colorful tales of his days working on Broadway and in
Hollywood with such famous figures as James Dean, Marlon Brando,
Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Muni and
legendary director Elia Kazan.
“He was a walking encyclopedia of great stories,” Steve MacQueen,
former Tallahassee Democrat theater critic and Thomajan friend, said
Tuesday.
Born in Massachusetts, the son of Armenian immigrants, Thomajan began
developing his street-tough persona as a kid after his family
relocated to a rough-and-tumble neighborhood in Brooklyn.
As a teenager in New York City in the ’30s, he hung around the Group
Theatre, known for its socially relevant plays. It’s where he first
met Kazan.
After serving four years in India, Burma and Japan during World War
II – a tour of duty that included the liberation of hellish prison
camps in Japan – Thomajan returned to find that Kazan had become one
of the most prominent directors in New York. He worked as stage
manager for a trio of Kazan’s landmark Tennessee Williams productions
on Broadway – “Camino Real,” “Sweet Bird of Youth” and “A Streetcar
Named Desire.”
During “Streetcar,” Thomajan’s jobs also included keeping Williams
supplied with “the right amount of bourbon” and sparring with Brando
backstage between scenes. Thomajan and Brando never became friends
and “would tolerate each other,” he said.
“As an actor, Brando is one of the greatest,” Thomajan said in 1995.
“Very powerful, very influential actor who could do some really
amazing things. As a person, of course, he’s a jerk, very selfish and
egotistical.”
The theater was always Thomajan’s first love, and he often spoke
passionately about the need for contemporary plays dealing seriously
with social issues and the human condition.
“Where are the new plays?” he said. “That’s what we need. What the
hell do you get out of revivals unless the people involved can
interpret them in a different way than they’ve been done for 400
years?”
Although he never obtained a college degree, the self-educated
Thomajan could discuss classic plays and literature at length. When
it came to chess, his playing style was as aggressive and keen as the
man himself. In the ’90s, the ever-restless Thomajan wrote an updated
stage version of Moliere’s “The Miser” and many other works.
Thomajan was on hand when Kazan’s career expanded beyond the stage
and onto the screen. He appeared in front of the cameras and behind
the scenes with the director on such films as “Viva Zapata,” “East of
Eden,” “Wild River,” “Boomerang!” and “On the Waterfront.”
In the famed car scene in “On the Waterfront” – the one in which
Brando tells Rod Steiger, “I could have been a contender, instead of
a bum, which is what I am” – Kazan filmed the shots of the two of
them, then did Brando’s close-ups as Steiger fed him his lines. But
when it was time for Steiger’s close-ups, Brando left. Steiger fumed.
“So Kazan said, ‘Edd, get in there and give him lines,'” Thomajan
said in ’95. “So on the close-ups with Steiger, when he’s looking
off-camera at Brando, he’s looking at me.”
In 1950, Thomajan co-starred with Jack Palance and Zero Mostel as one
of three disease-ridden lowlifes spreading a plague in Kazan’s gritty
classic “Panic in the Streets.” In one memorable scene, Thomajan was
tossed from a seedy second-story tenement into an alley in New
Orleans.
“We didn’t use any stunt guys on that picture,” he said in 1999 when
Kazan was being given an honorary Oscar. “It hurt my neck, but I
walked away. I would’ve done anything for Gadge (Kazan’s nickname).”
In the ’60s, Thomajan kept working, directing numerous summer shows
in Miami Beach and even made a film called “The Ex-Americans,” which
he directed in Rome (he later dismissed the movie as “just plain
bad”). He also worked as an executive production supervisor and scout
for a Canadian firm that financed lesser-known pictures all over
Europe. Other credits include directing a Broadway play (“Harbor
Lights,” starring Robert Alda) and even a few operas for New York’s
Civic Theatre.
When asked why he settled down in a remote A-frame cabin, which
intentionally had no phone or TV, in the woods near Monticello,
Thomajan liked to joke: “Because it’s halfway between New York and
Miami.”
Thomajan requested that no memorial service be held after his death.
THOMAJAN PLAYED …
A postal worker in the Christmas classic “Miracle on 34th Street”
(1947)
A court witness named Cartucci in Elia Kazan’s “Boomerang!” (1947)
A plague-infected thief who is eventually tossed from a balcony (by
Jack Palance) in Kazan’s “Panic in the Streets” (1950)
A gangster in “The Breaking Point” (1950), directed by Michael Curtiz
(“Casablanca”).
A dog-stealing henchman for David Niven in “The Pink Panther” (1964)
He was also stage manager for Kazan’s Broadway productions of “A
Streetcar Named Desire,” “Camino Real” and “Sweet Bird of Youth,” all
by Tennessee Williams.