Tom Ligon Dies: Stage & Screen Actor Who Served On SAG-AFTRA’s New York Board Was 85
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- Tom Ligon died at 85, with SAG-AFTRA confirming the death but releasing no cause or additional details
- Ligon was born September 10, 1940, in New Orleans and launched his TV career in the mid-1960s before booking a supporting role in the 1969 film musical Paint Your Wagon alongside Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood
- Ligon starred in two short-lived 1969 Broadway productions — Angela opposite Geraldine Page and Love Is a Time of Day with Sandy Duncan — and remained active on New York stages for decades, including an understudy stint in Broadway's Tartuffe in 1996
- Ligon's film credits spanned The Last American Hero, Bang the Drum Slowly (in which he sang "Streets of Laredo"), Joyride, Young Doctors in Love, and Serial, with TV guest spots on Medical Center, Starsky and Hutch, Police Woman, Baretta, Dallas, and Law & Order: SVU
- Ligon appeared in five daytime soaps — The Young and the Restless, Loving, Santa Barbara, Another World, and All My Children — rounding out a screen career that stretched from the 1970s into the 2010s
- Ligon was a SAG-AFTRA member for roughly 60 years, served on the New York Local board, chaired the National Seniors Committee, and co-chaired the NY Seniors Committee
- Ligon advocated for the 2012 merger of SAG and AFTRA, and was married to fellow actor K.C. Ligon (née Crawford) from 1976 until her death in 2009
Why it matters: Ligon logged roughly 60 years of credited work across Broadway, daytime soaps, primetime TV, and feature films — the kind of six-decade working-actor arc the headline only partially captures. His advocacy for the 2012 SAG-AFTRA merger marks him as a labor-side figure inside one of Hollywood's largest union consolidations, and his death removes a board voice from the New York Local's seniors committees.
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