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 The world welcomed Thomas Edwin (Tom) Fleetwood on July 6, 1935 at
Boone County Hospital, in Columbia, Missouri. The middle son of a college professor, Tom’s first claim to fame was
a first place trophy in the “Blue Ribbon Baby Contest”, at the 1938 Missouri State Fair. Tom had an older brother, Jim (now deceased) who became an
opera singer and would later share Tom’s love of darts. Their younger brother, Ross (Bud), became a veterinarian and has stayed in rural Missouri.
The first girl Tom ever slept with was Iola Sontag. She was in the crib next to him
in the hospital. The two went all through Robert E. Lee Elementary School together and, in June 2003, they will join
many of their former classmates at their 50th High School Reunion, back in Missouri.
When he finished Robert E. Lee Elementary School, Tom spent the first half
of his 7th grade year at Keene School --- a little red school house, near his folks’ farm. From there, he went to Thomas Jefferson Junior High and is a
proud graduate of Hickman High School --- home of the infamous Hickman Kewpies. He attended the University of Missouri for one semester and
transferred to Hannibal LaGrange Junior College in Hannibal, MO for the next year and a half. From there it was on to Culver Stockton College in Canton,
MO, to finish his degree in Speech and Dramatic Arts, with a minor in Philosophy and Ethics. “That’s a fancy way of saying religion,” Tom quipped.
Prior to his college graduation in 1958, Tom somehow learned to play a pretty good game of football and signed with the Green Bay Packers, later that
same year. Guess that’s why he is still a devoted ‘Cheese Head’, even though he lived his youth in Missouri and most of his adult life in New York
and California.
Tom received a signing bonus of $2,000 from the Packer organization. With
that, and an additional $200, he purchased his first brand new car! Unfortunately, a severe knee injury prevented a long-term NFL career --- but,
his short-lived Packer involvement still looks great on a resume!
Tom left football to pursue an acting career. He worked one summer at
Iowa’s Okoboji Summer Theater. That winter, KICD Radio, in Spencer, IA, asked him to stay on as their disc jockey. One night, he reported on the
weather and it was 24 degrees below zero. “I put a note in the window saying --- ‘I went home to Columbia, MO’ --- and that was the end of my career in
radio,” Tom laughed.
From there it was on to Kansas City. In 1960, Tom became the Assistant
Stage Director for the Kansas City Lyric Opera, where his older brother, Jim, had been a singer for several seasons. His stint in Kansas City convinced
Tom that he needed to head to the Big Apple to make his name, as an actor. After a year -- without much luck -- he headed back to the Midwest, working
the next couple of seasons with the Kansas City Lyric Opera, the Okoboji Summer Theater and aboard an excursion boat called the SS Empress,
where he played guitar and banjo and sang a lot of Burl Ives stuff. Two years later, he headed back to New York to stay.
In 1963, Tom appeared in a few Off Broadway shows, but his big opportunity
came at the 1963-64 World’s Fair where, daily, he did two 15 minute shows every hour, in the Hollywood Pavilion. Later that year, he garnered a role in a
Broadway Show based on the novel, The Yearling. The show opened one week and closed the next!
Out of work again, Tom ran into a bit of luck. Back when he was in Kansas
City, Tom, his brother Jim, and a fellow named Vestor Swingle, studied voice with E.J. Remley. Swingle had sung with the Kansas City Opera, and was
now teaching music in the high school at Long Beach, Long Island, New York. Tom was living in Manhattan, when he met up with his old friend. The
conversation turned to his recent Broadway success (short as it was) and Tom mentioned that he was currently out of work. Swingle knew that the
high school shop teacher was going on sabbatical and asked Tom if he could
teach shop. “Sure I can teach shop,” Tom said. “I needed the money, so, I went out and met the Principal, a man named Dr. Swartz. During the
interview, he asked if I could also teach mechanical drawing? I said --- ‘you give me a text book and a days’ head start, and I can teach any subject
you’ve got.’ He said, ‘You’re hired! Just make sure nobody gets their fingers
in the buzz saw.’” Having been raised around wood working on the farm, Tom
had also worked in theatrical scene design, he felt pretty confident about his new job.
“To get to school each day,” Tom continued, “I had to get on the subway at
79th and Broadway…ride the local down to 72nd…and take the express to Grand Central Station. From there, I took a train to Long Beach, Long Island,
where I had to catch a bus…and then walk nearly two miles to the high school! It took me a little over 2 hours (each way) to get to a job that paid
$25 a day. Then, Swingle told me about a young gal who drove out from Manhattan, every day, to teach music at the elementary school in Long
Beach. He thought I might be able to ride with her. That ‘young gal’ was Della. She lived on 79th St. on the east side, so I caught the 79th St. cross
town bus, every morning, and rode to school with her. That’s how we met.” As coincidences occur, Swingle had been a Graduate student, while Della
was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa…so, she knew him, as well.
They all ended up in the same place, in New York, years later. Small world!
That was January 26, 1967. After going together for more than a year, Tom
and Della were married on June 22, 1968, at the Park Avenue Methodist Church, in New York City. Ken Kercheval (fans of the TV show Dallas know
that Ken played the role of Cliff Barnes for 13 years) was the best man and both of Tom’s brothers were ushers.
One of the many odd jobs Tom had, while living in New York, was running a
printing press. The owner’s son was planning to move the business to California, the week following Tom and Della’s wedding. He agreed to rent a
U-Haul truck, if they would buy the gas and drive it to California. They have many fond memories of their cross-country honeymoon in a U-Haul truck!
The son and his wife arrived first and moved into an apartment in a Culver City building, owned by his father. “When we got to California with the truck, we
had planned to move in with them, until we found a place of our own,” explained Tom. “Even though they had bought a house, by the time we
arrived, they told us we could stay and maintain the apartment, until we found our own place. Well, eight years later, we found a house.”
Tom got a call to...
The complete Tom Fleetwood Story, including 9 additional, archived photos,
can only be found in our Jan/Feb 2003 print edition —pages 24 - 33.
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