Stage and Screen Veteran Tom Ligon Passes Away at 85
A mainstay of New York theatre, Ligon also appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Paint Your Wagon.
BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that longtime stage and screen performer Tom Ligon, known for his screen roles in projects like Paint Your Wagon and The Young and the Restless, passed away at 85 years old on June 26, 2026.
A veteran of New York theatre, Ligon created the role of Orson in the prize-winning Off-Broadway musical Your Own Thing (1968); starred on Broadway opposite Geraldine Page in Angela, by Sumner Arthur Long; and with Sandy Duncan in John Patrick's Love is a Time of Day.
Ligon played the Tiger in Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo in its original iteration, directed by Giovanna Sardelli. Later in his career, the actor appeared in the critically acclaimed New York production of Our Town, directed by Jack Cummings III. Also, for Transport Group, he played in Requiem For William, All the Way Home, and The Audience. A 1996 production of Tartuffe marked his final Broadway credit.
He appeared in several films starting in the late 1960s, including leading 1971's Fury on Wheels, and playing supporting roles in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly, and the big-screen musical Paint Your Wagon, adapted from the Lerner and Loewe stage show.
Ligon was a television mainstay for several decades, appearing in episodes of Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch, The Young and the Restless, All My Children, Oz, and Law & Order.
