Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Stapleton, Thomas Lawrence May 12, 1969
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Dorothy Strawhand http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008405 April 9, 2025, 3:43 pm

Virginian Pilot May 13, 1969

            Thomas L. Stapleton, 78, Backstage Veteran of Shows

Thomas Lawrence Stapleton, 78, of 1446 Westover Ave., a veteran of nearly 60 
years backstage in show business, died Monday in a hospital. 
A native of Norfolk and a lifelong resident of this area, he was the husband of 
Mrs. Mary Farrell Pepper Stapleton, an actress in the 1930s of Jimmy Hodges' 
musical stock company. She is his only survivor. 
Stapleton was a son of Lawrence and Mrs. Theresa Brown Stapleton. 
In the mid-50s, Stapleton was the man behind the spotlight at the Miss America 
Pageant in Atlantic City. He had been in show business since a lad in knee 
pants, having lived on Plume Street at Martins Lane, back of the Old Academy of 
Music on Main Street. He rose to play bigtime vaudeville in New York. 
Stapleton has worked backstage at Norfolk Center Theater and the Arena since it 
was built at the start of World War II. He also was a stage crewman at Norfolk's 
historic Gaiety burlesque theater which was bulldozed away in 1960 when Main 
Street was redeveloped as a financial center.
After working up to be a stage carpenter at the Academy of Music, he left 
Norfolk to go on tour. His travels with road shows in the heyday of vaudeville 
carried him to the West Coast four times.
He quit the road when he married Mary Farrell in the summer of 1939. However, 
each summer he migrated to Atlantic City for the Ice Capades and Miss America 
Pageant. He worked the first show at Atlantic City in 1928.
Stagehands have it easier today, Stapleton said in a 1961 interview. In the old 
days, he said, the shows carried more scenery, heavy flats, wings and jogs and 
drops that had wooden batting top and bottom. He recalled that "Ben Hur" carried 
treadmills for the chariot races.
"But today they carry drops that tie on pipes with sash line, that can be taken 
down, folded up and put in canvas bags."
He was a member of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, a 59 year member of Norfolk 
Elks Lodge 38 and member of Norfolk Theatrical Union 72.
The Rosary will be said tonight at 7:30 in H.D Oliver Funeral Apartments, 
Norfolk 
A Requiem Mass will be celebrated Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Sacred Heart Catholic 
Church. Burial will be in St. Mary's Cemetery.
The family will be at A5, 190 Willowwood Drive.
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STAPLETON, THOMAS LAWRENCE — In a local hospital, Monday, THOMAS LAWRENCE 
STAPLETON, husband of Mrs. Mary Farrell Pepper Stapleton, and son of the late 
Lawrence and Mrs. Theresa Brown Stapleton, in the 79th year of his age. The body 
will be taken from H. D. Oliver Funeral Apts., Norfolk, to Sacred Heart Catholic 
Church, for a requiem mass to be celebrated Wednesday at 10 o’clock. Burial, St. 
Mary’s Cemetery. The family will be at 100 Willow Wood Drive, A5, Norfolk.

Virginian-Pilot May 14, 1969


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