Tom Hatcher

Tom Hatcher was an American actor born in Oklahoma who became the longtime partner of playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents. The two met in 1954, after the writer Gore Vidal suggested Laurents look up Hatcher, then working in a Beverly Hills menswear store, and they remained together for 52 years, until Hatcher's death in 2006. Hatcher trained as an actor after graduating from the University of Oklahoma, appearing on Broadway in A Clearing in the Woods (1957) opposite Kim Stanley and An Invitation to a March (1960) opposite Jane Fonda, as well as on television in anthology series including The Twilight Zone and The United States Steel Hour. Laurents later wrote candidly about their decades together in his 2000 memoir, Original Story By. In 2010, the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation established an annual award in both men's names for an unproduced play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright, continuing their shared commitment to new theatrical voices. Hatcher died of complications from lung cancer in 2006, at age 77.