Jimmy Lydon

Jimmy Lydon was an American actor who also produced for television, beginning in show business as a teenager in the 1930s. He grew up in Bergenfield, New Jersey, after being born in Harrington Park in 1923, and spent two years modeling for the Powers Agency before trying his hand at plays; his first screen role came in Two Thoroughbreds (1939). He played the title part in Tom Brown's School Days (1940), which drew good notices from critics, and from 1941 to 1944 he was under contract at Paramount as the adolescent Henry Aldrich. Later came Life with Father (1947), The Time of Your Life (1948) opposite James Cagney, and Island in the Sky (1953). On television he played Chris Thayer on The First Hundred Years, a live CBS daytime serial, and he later produced, helping to create 77 Sunset Strip and producing Mister Roberts in 1966 and Roll Out from 1973 to 1974. He died in 2022.