STARDOM – It’s all in the family for Tom Bupp

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, June 3, 2008

JOHN DAY – Tom Bupp of John Day, a retired telephone technician, has collected mountains of information about his father – also named Tom Bupp – over the years, including dozens of movie posters from the 1930s featuring his dad when he was a youngster with dusty hair, a freckled face and laughing eyes.

As a child movie actor, Tom Bupp’s father was better known as Tommy, and if the posters are any indication, one might say Tommy Bupp was once a household name. He acted in more than 100 A and B movies.

Yet, as an adult, Tommy seemed to sweep the movie-star title under the rug, happy to leave the experience in the past – at least where his five children, Tom, Jamie, Paul, Billy and Russell, were concerned.

In 1961, after flipping through a TV Guide, 13-year-old Tom Bupp got his first glimpse into his father’s unflaunted past. He saw the name “Tommy Bupp” in the magazine, listed as a member of the cast of the John Wayne movie, “The Conflict,” a non-Western about a boxer (Wayne) who sets up staged fights, but, decides to reform after falling in love with a lady and saving an orphan boy (Bupp).

He was surprised to see his name in the magazine.

“I took the TV Guide to my mom and said, ‘Look, here’s my name,'” he said.

His mother replied, “Yes, your dad was in the movies. Didn’t you know?”

His older brother knew about it, and Tom had been told when he was just 5 years old, but it wasn’t a subject of discussion in the house.

His mother let Tom stay home from school to watch the movie starring his dad.

That day he began what would be a lifelong interest in discovering his father’s early life as an actor.

He discovered his father’s siblings, Sonny, Ann and June, were also in the movies as children.

It all began when the family was living in Alhambra, Calif. Someone suggested that June audition for the movies. She successfully gave it a shot and the others followed suit. Tom says his grandmother, Luella, was the “ultimate movie mom.”

Ann was a dancer and was featured in movies with Judy Garland, and even took piano lessons from Garland’s mother. She was also an extra in “Gone With the Wind,” a couple Shirley Temple movies, and movies starring Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) and Deanna Durbin.

June was cast in “The Boy Friends,” a Hal Roach series of movies, and did some Westerns.

It was the boys who made all the money, though.

“My dad bought them a house,” Tom Bupp noted.

Sonny had smaller parts than his brother, Tommy; however, he was in some bigger movies – Sonny’s biggest was playing the son of Orson Wells in “Citizen Kane.”

the short “Cash and Carry” with the Three Stooges. In 1938, he earned as much as $1,200 a year as an extra in movies, when $37 was the average pay for extras.

One of Tommy’s first movies was “Hi! Neighbor,” a Hal Roach “Our Gang” comedy short. The popular Our Gang series later became known on TV as “The Little Rascals.”

That start led to other roles, including parts in “It’s a Gift” with W.C. Fields; “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart; “Babes in Toyland” with Laurel and Hardy; “San Francisco” with Clark Gable; “Captains Courageous” with Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew and Mickey Rooney.

Besides the many posters hanging on walls throughout his home, Tom has a couple of large albums of movie stills from many films his dad was in. A rendition of his father is also shown on the book cover of “Little Men” – another movie he was in.

Tom’s collecting frenzy began with the advent of the Internet. In 1996, out of curiosity, he plugged his name into a search engine and to his amazement found several thousand entries for his father – movie reviews, posters and videos for sale and so on.

“One hobby leads to another,” said his wife, Sandy Bupp.

With all the old videos he’s gathered over the years, he’s found an enjoyable retirement pastime in converting them to DVD format, accumulating the movie history his father and aunts and uncle left behind.

Those family members have all passed on.

Tommy left acting when he was 16, after playing a part in the movie “Naval Academy.” He joined the U.S. Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor and later had his career in electrical wholesale.

When Tommy had a family of his own, a film agent approached the senior Tom, asking if his son would like to be in a movie.

His dad’s reply was, “No way, I don’t want to ruin his life.”

The movie business provided well for Tommy’s parents and siblings, but it wasn’t the lifestyle he wanted for his children.

Many questions have been shelved, questions that Tom didn’t ask his father when he was alive. But the junior Tom has compiled a book of history, loaded with pictures and information, to pass on to his daughter, Jennifer Goldblatt, and her family, who also live in John Day.

“It is a great hobby that has enriched my life,” Tom said. “It’s an important part of family and movie history – they were there for the early part of talkies (when movies began to have sound) – and it changed everybody in the family. Instead of standing in soup lines, they did very good. It definitely changed how they grew up.”