Thomas Bryant Ligon (September 10, 1940 – June 26, 2026) was an American actor. He appeared in the films Paint Your Wagon, Jump, and Bang the Drum Slowly (in which he also sang the title song) as well as the television series The Young and the Restless, and Oz.
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Life and career
Thomas Bryant Ligon was born in New Orleans, Louisiana September 10, 1940, and was of Cajun ancestry. Mentored by folksinger and actor Gordon Heath in Paris, beginning in the mid 1950s, Ligon then attended St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.), where he suffered a broken leg while playing football, and, sans sports, his interests turned solidly toward theater. At Yale, where he was a member of Skull and Bones and graduated as an English major (1962), he was discovered by Tennessee Williams, who saw his performance as Kilroy in Williams' play, Camino Real at the Yale Dramatic Association. Ligon became one of the most sought after young actors in New York in the 1960s.
Ligon appeared on many prominent regional stages in the United States, notably the Arena Stage where he played the title role in Billy Budd and in Hard Travelin' by Millard Lampell in 1964, and Actors Theatre of Louisville, where he played Hank Czerniak, the polka king, in Evelyn and the Polka King.
He married Katharine Dunfee Clarke (1948–2009) on December 31, 1976.
