Trivia

Was a close friend of John Barrymore and became part of his Hollywood entourage of drinkers and raconteurs, which also included Charles MacArthur, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn, Roland Young and Anthony Quinn.

Brother of James P. Mitchell, President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of Labor 1953-1961.

1939: Appeared in three out of the 10 movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar: Gone with the Wind (1939) (which won), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Stagecoach (1939) (for which he won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actor).

Is one of 9 actors to have won the Triple Crown of Acting (an Oscar, Emmy and Tony); the others in chronological order are Melvyn Douglas, Paul Scofield, Jack Albertson, Jason Robards, Jeremy Irons, Al Pacino, Geoffrey Rush and Christopher Plummer.

1953: When he claimed the Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for "Hazel Flagg", a musical version of the film Nothing Sacred (1937), he became the first performer to claim the Triple Crown of acting awards: Tony, Emmy (as TV's Best Actor of 1953) and Oscar (for Stagecoach (1939)).

Attended Elizabeth (New Jersey) High School and had his first job as a newspaper reporter while a student there. Following graduation, he continued working as a reporter and was hired by newspapers in Newark, Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

The youngest of seven children born to Irish immigrants who settled in New Jersey, his father James Mitchell, worked in the newspaper industry and died when Thomas was a young boy; his mother's name was Mary.

Was an avid collector of fine art, which included a Rembrandt panel acquired in 1940 from a Polish prince.

In 1939, in addition to appearing in three movies nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, he appeared in two other films that received nominations in other categories: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939).

Even though he was an actor of great versatility, he received both of his Oscar nominations for playing drunken doctors in John Ford films.

He remarried his first wife, Anne Stewart Brewer, after her divorce from Frederick Philip Hier Jr.. She had married him on October 23, 1936, and then divorced him on May 22, 1941.

Appeared in nine Oscar Best Picture nominees: Lost Horizon (1937), Stagecoach (1939), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Our Town (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), Wilson (1944), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and High Noon (1952), with Gone with the Wind the only winner.

Daughter Anne, born of his first marriage, was his only child.

Was originally cast in The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941) [aka "The Devil and Daniel Webster"], but while filming he lost control of a horse-drawn carriage in which he and young actor Lindy Wade were riding and it crashed. He was thrown from the carriage and suffered a fractured skull. Edward Arnold replaced him and all his scenes had to be reshot. Wade recovered enough to continue in his film role.

He has appeared in eight films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Lost Horizon (1937), Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), Stagecoach (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and High Noon (1952).

His nephew, James P. Mitchell, was U.S. Secretary of Labor during the Eisenhower Administration.

He was a lifelong Republican.

He was interred at the Vaultage of the Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles.

Father: James Mitchell; Mother: Mary Donnelly.

He was cremated and his ashes are stored at a crematorium in California.

At the time of his death, he was touring in a play, "Prescription : Murder" (originally "Rx: Murder"), by William Link and Richard Levinson. At age 70, he was playing the wily police detective, Lt. Columbo, later immortalized in the long-running TV series by Peter Falk. Mitchell's co-star, Joseph Cotton, ruefully recalled in his autobiography that the play had started out being about a psychiatrist who murders his wife and is caught by a cop who's smarter than he seems, but, during rehearsals and try-outs, inexorably turned into a story about a smart cop who catches a psychiatrist who's murdered his wife. Mitchell's death caused plans to take the play to Broadway to be abandoned, but, in 1968, it was turned into a TV movie (starring Falk), which in turn led to the famous series.