in Heaven. His last film roles were small roles in Always in My Heart and The Major and the Minor (1942), where he played a military school cadet who flirted with Ginger Rogers' character. His last appearance on Broadway was in Your Loving Son, which closed after just two performances in April 1941. Later years With the entry of the United States into World War II, Thomas joined the US Navy in 1942. He was commissioned and assigned to the United States Coast Guard. He served as third officer on patrols in the Atlantic, and was discharged in Philadelphia in 1944. Following the war, Thomas and his parents lived in Manhattan and worked in the daily and weekly radio series originating in the studios of the four major networks. By 1948 all three Thomases had moved into television. In 1949 Frankie Thomas was a regular on two pioneering TV soap operas, A Woman to Remember and One Man's Family. In the fall of 1950 he became the idol of millions of children when he played the starring role in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, beginning on CBS and transferring to ABC in January 1951. Thomas had beaten out Jack Lemmon for the part. The series continued its three-a-week 15-minute broadcasts until the spring of 1952. Kinescopes were rebroadcast on NBC in the summer of 1951, with live introductions by Thomas as Tom Corbett. During the spring of 1952, the TV cast of Tom Corbett also performed a twice-a-week 30-minute broadcast on ABC radio. The TV series reappeared on DuMont, alternating Saturdays with Secret Files of Captain Video for 30 minutes, before going off the air in May 1954. Thomas became a regular on the soap opera First Love, but in December 1954, Tom Corbett began on NBC, running until June 1955. By this time Tom Corbett's rivals Captain Video and Commander Buzz Corry of Space Patrol had been off the air for several months. None of the science fiction series was ever revived, though there was talk of doing so in 1957, in the aftermath of Sputnik. Tom Corbett had the distinction of appearing on all four Golden-Age TV networks, and during the summer of 1951 appeared on two different networks simultaneously. Like most child stars, Thomas never made the transition to adult roles. Despite the fact that he was 34 years old at the end, his Tom Corbett character was