Thomas G. Lingham (April 7, 1870 – February 19, 1950; also credited as Thomas Lingham, Tom Lingham, and as T. G. Lingham) was an American stage performer and then a film actor during both the silent and early sound eras. He appeared in more than 100 motion pictures between 1914 and 1934, often portraying villains, which in the film industry at that time were also called "heavies". During his 20-year screen career, Lingham was cast in productions for Kalem Company, Signal Film Corporation, Pathé, Universal Pictures, Mascot Pictures, Lone Star Film Company, and for other studios in and around Hollywood. Early life and stage career Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Thomas was the son of actress Katherine Fletcher and Matheis ("Matt") V. Lingham, who was also a well known stage actor and leading player on Broadway in the late 1870s and 1880s. Thomas Lingham began his own entertainment career performing in operatic productions in 1894 and then acting for five years with theatrical star James Neill, initially serving as a supporting character in the 1895 stage production Monte Cristo. Then, during the early 1900s, Lingham acted with several stock companies in Indianapolis, Buffalo, Louisville, and Boston as well as being featured in a variety of Broadway plays, including an "all-star cast" adaptation of The Three Musketeers. Film career In 1913, after nearly 20 years singing and acting on stage, he and his wife Alberta (née Boardman), who used the name Katherine Goodrich in her own acting career, moved to California to begin working in the rapidly expanding motion picture industry in and around Los Angeles. Lingham soon found work with Kalem Company in east Hollywood, where in 1914 he was cast and credited as T. G. Lingham in dramas such as the two-reeler The Shadow of Guilt and the much longer five-reeler Shannon of the Sixth in which he portrayed Shah, the king of Dehli. By 1916, Lingham had established a reputation at Kalem, Signal Film Corporation, and at other California studios as a reliable supporting player and as one particularly skilled in portraying villains on screen. In fact, in the 1916 "Motion Picture Studio Directory" published in the trade publication Motion Picture News, a section of several pages is devoted to profiling actors who specialize in roles as villains or "heavies". Lingham is listed and pictured among those actors. His directory entry even includes a basic description of him: "Hght.,