Actor Blaine Thornton passed away this week at his home in San Diego, California. He was 91. Mr. Thornton will long be remembered as one of the major stars in early television, but only by his immediate family.
A child star, Blaine first found the silver screen in Hal Roach’s ill-fated spinoff to the “Our Gang” franchise, “Buckwheat’s Posse.”
According to his neice, Jennifer Thornton-Gunderson, Blaine played the loveable “Cracker” character. There’s absolutely nothing on Wikipedia about that, and GlossyNews wishes Jennifer would stop calling us, like eighteen times a day this week.
In the war years, Blaine Thornton served bravely in the Pacific theatre of Operations, entertaining troops with his bird calls and ukelele concerts, until an unfortunate friendly fire episode mandated a medical discharge.
In the early days of television (according to Jennifer) Blaine Thornton starred in many shows. Among them were the western drama “Kirk Pecos: Frontier boot salesman” and the medical drama “Chad Jarret: Prison Obstetircan.” Also, Mr. Thornton starred in the perhaps ill-timed comedy, given the McCarthy era ethos, “Make room for Stalin.”
According to Jennifer, Blaine Thornton’s last series was sometime in the late 1960′s as star of the show, “Brick Tallow: Hippy Detective.”
Reached for comment, film critic Roger Ebert said, “Never heard of him. Do you know Jennifer? Please, for the love of God, will you tell her to stop calling me?”
