Sadly, this once-popular silent screen star and older matinée idol for Paramount Studios, is all but forgotten today. Thomas "Tommy" Meighan was one of the rulers of the Hollywood roost, between the years 1915 and 1928. He was born in Pittsburgh, his father a president of a major manufacturing company. Meighan switched interests from medicine to ...
He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1719 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
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The Thomas Meighan Theatre in New Port Richey, Florida, was named in his honor. Designed by Thomas Reed Martin, the 500-seat theater opened on July 1, 1926, with The New Klondike (1926). Meighan was a celebrity guest at the opening of the theater's first sound film on March 9, 1930. The building still stands but is now (as of 2014) called the Richey Suncoast Theatre.
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In the mid-1920s, Paramount decided to close its New York Astoria studio and bring its big three stars, Richard Dix, Bebe Daniels and Thomas Meighan to Hollywood. Meighan refused and was too big a star at the time to be fired, so the studio ostensibly kept the facility open for him.
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Meighan did not associate socially with other actors. He played golf often with Ring Lardner and Booth Tarkington, and was reportedly very friendly with Irish tenor John McCormack, Gene Tunney and President Calvin Coolidge.
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The leopard around Meighan's neck in Male and Female (1919) belonged to the Selig Zoo and was due to be destroyed because it had mauled someone. Director Cecil B. DeMille bought it and kept it sedated with chloroform during its scenes with the actor. Reportedly, lip-readers could see the frightened Meighan begging the director to get the scene in the can, so he could get the deadly cat off his shoulders.
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Meighan was the only attendee and witness at the secret marriage of Olive Thomas and Jack Pickford on October 25, 1916.
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Was friends with writer Ring Lardner who went on to mention him in his short story "Haircut".
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Uncle of radio actor James Meighan (died 1970) who played the Falcon in radio from 1945 - 1947.
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