Tom Gilson

Tom Gilson guest starred on a few episodes. He always played a young punk who enjoyed pushing people around. I looked him up on IMDB because I have seen him so often on Lawman.

Apparently, in real life, he was a lot like the characters he played on Lawman. Tom was married to Playboy Playmate/actress Saundra Edwards. She appeared in one Lawman episode and a couple of other western series. Tom and Saundra had one child and she had two by a previous marriage.

In 1962, Tom and Saundra had separated. He went to her house and threatened to kill her and the children while she had a 12-gauge shotgun pointed at his stomach. She pulled the trigger and he was killed. Saundra later said that she thought the safety was on. The killing was later determined to be justifiable homicide/self defense. He was only 28 years old when he died.

The glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen web site has a good biography of Saundra.

There is also a very strange story on the glamourgirls site about Tom Gilson. Two of his best friends were Chad Everett and Greg Morris (Mission Impossible). A couple of years after Tom died, Chad had a party at his beach house. Sometime during the evening, someone asked, "Who is that standing by the sofa?" Both Chad and Greg recognized the strange visitor as Tom Gilson. Apparently, he just vanished after that. That is a REAL strange story.

It is impossible to like the characters played by Tom Gilson on Lawman. But, when I see him on the show from now on, I will always think about the senseless way he died at so young an age.