Briefly married to actress Jeanne Martel. She co-starred with Tom in a few of his sound westerns in 1936 and 1937.
Buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Detroit.
He was the first actor to portray Captain Marvel (1941).
In 1943 he played The Phantom in (Adventures of) The Phantom serial. The first to do this too, after bringing Capt. Marvel to the screen.
While simultaneously working as a western hero, he was also a weight-lifting champion. Once considered the strongest man in America, he won the national AAU weight-lifting championship in 1928 (he lifted 760 lbs.) and made the 1928 U.S. Olympic team.