Born Samuel Yewell Tompkins, actor Tom Ewell began his career acting in college plays. In 1928 the teen-aged Ewell made his professional stage debut. After moving to New York he found work at Macy's before debuting on Broadway in 1934; over the next fifteen years he established himself as a Broadway character comedian. Before landing an important supporting role in Adam's Rib (1949) opposite Judy Holliday, he had small roles in two films. He went on to a sporadic screen career, usually in roles in which he caricatured the foibles of the ordinary man; his most memorable appearance was in The Seven Year Itch (1955) opposite Marilyn Monroe, in which he reprised his triumphant 1952 Broadway role. In 1960, he briefly starred on the TV series The Tom Ewell Show and in the '70s co-starred with Robert Blake in the series Baretta.