Tom Byrd

Tom Byrd
Born	Thomas Byrd (1960-05-18) May 18, 1960 Philippine Islands
Occupation	Actor

Thomas Byrd (born May 18, 1960) is an American actor.

Career

Byrd, who was raised in Florida, has primarily appeared on network television between 1981 and 2000.

Byrd's first television appearance was in 1981 on ABC's situation comedy Laverne & Shirley in the episode entitled "Teenage Lust". His last role was in 2000 as Tim Walsh in two episodes of NBC's Frasier starring Kelsey Grammer. In the interval, he appeared in such series as NBC's Family Ties, The Facts of Life, and Remington Steele and CBS's Newhart and Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury. Byrd has also done stunts in several films, including Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), in which he had a small part as a soldier.

During the 1983-1984 season, at the age of twenty-three, he was cast as a teenager, Boone Sawyer, an aspiring Elvis Presley-style singer living in Tennessee during the 1950s, in the short-lived NBC series Boone.

Boone was the replacement program (Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern) for Michael Landon's Little House on the Prairie, which concluded a nine-year run in the spring of 1983. The program was created by the author Earl Hamner Jr., who had created the long running CBS series The Waltons. A critic described Boone as "an excellent show that didn't get a chance" in the fierce competition of network television: That's Incredible! on ABC and Scarecrow and Mrs. King on CBS.

Barry Corbin played Byrd's father, Merit Sawyer, who considered the pursuit of a musical career to have been unlikely to succeed. Ronnie Claire Edwards played Boone's Aunt Dolly. Other cast members included Elizabeth Huddle, as Boone's mother, William Edward Phipps as Uncle Link Sawyer, the husband of Aunt Dolly, Andrew Prine as A.W. Holly, Julie Anne Haddock as Amanda, Robyn Lively as Banjo, and Amanda Peterson as Squirt Sawyer. While 13 episodes were produced, the series was cancelled after 10 episodes aired in the fall of 1983, with the three remaining episodes burned off in late July and early August 1984.

In 1985, he played Sam Neill's son in the miniseries Kane & Abel, and later played an inmate in Young Guns II (1990). The film, principally starring Emilio Estevez and Kiefer Sutherland, still occasionally airs on the American Movie Classic network.

In 1995, Byrd was cast as Lou Waller, the ex-jock sportscaster with a secret that he fears could ruin his career, in Live Shot, a short-lived drama series from Rysher Entertainment broadcast on the UPN network during its initial season on the air. All UPN programs at the time were soon cancelled except for Star Trek: Voyager.

Filmography

Film and television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1981	Laverne & Shirley	Mike	Episode: "Young at Heart"
1982	Quincy, M.E.	Perry Jordan	Episode: "Bitter Pill"
1982	Young Doctors in Love	New Intern	Feature film
1982	The Powers of Matthew Star	Tom	Episode: "The Accused"
1982	Gimme a Break!	Dave	Episode: "Sam's Imaginary Friend"
1982	The Facts of Life	Leo	Episode: "Different Drummer"
1983	Fantasy Island	Ethan	Episode: "The Devil Stick/Touch and Go"
1983	Alice	Rudy	Episode: "Tommy, the Jailbird"
1983	Twilight Zone: The Movie	G.I.	Feature film (Segment #1: "Time Out")
1983–84	Boone	Boone Sawyer	Main cast (13 episodes)
1983	Death Ride to Osaka	Don Potter	Television film (aka Girls of the White Orchid)
1984	Family Ties	Rick Harmon	Episode: "Ready or Not"
1984	St. Elsewhere	Kevin Hooper	Episode: "Equinox"
1984	Love Thy Neighbor	Wayne Nelson	Television film
1984	All Together Now	Kip Parker	Television sitcom pilot
1984	Wet Gold	Chris Barnes	Television film
1984	Remington Steele	Chip Flowers	Episode: "Breath of Steele"
1985	The Facts of Life	Nick	Episode: "With a Little Help from My Friends"
1985	Malice in Wonderland	William Hopper	Television film
1985	Kane & Abel	Richard Kane	Television miniseries
1986	Newhart	Robert Cameron	Episode: "Desperately Desiring Susan: Part 2"
1987	Ohara	Danny Johnson	Episode: "The Sparrow"
1988	Murder, She Wrote	Paul Gambini	Episode: "A Very Good Year for Murder"
1989	Out Cold	Mr. Holstrom	Feature film
1989	Nightingales	Dr. Thomas Price	Episodes: #1.4 / #1.9
1989	Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North	Robert Owen	Television film
1990	Alien Nation	Bud Anderson	Episode: "Partners"
1990	Sydney	Rick	Episode: "You? You're a Private Eye?"
1990	Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory	Pit Inmate	Feature film
1991	True Colors	Donald Jenkins	Episode: "A Real Pain"
1994	One West Waikiki	Frank Walker	Episode: "Terminal Island"
1995	Live Shot	Lou Waller	Main cast (14 episodes)
1997	Unhappily Ever After	Professor Alfred	Episode: "College!"
2000	Frasier	Tim Walsh	"Something Borrowed, Someone Blue" (Parts 1 & 2)