G valmont thomas biography

His fast, fiery eyes; his large frame, his impossibly dexterous face; his charismatic intensity — actor G. Valmont Thomas has been a Northwest audience favorite for decades, in roles from Falstaff at Oregon Shakespeare Festival to a local-legend performance as Dr.

Frank N. Furter in “The Rocky Horror Show” at Empty Space to a troubled actor in Alice Childress’ “Trouble in Mind” at Intiman.

Thomas, age 58, died on the morning of Dec. 18 after four days in hospice care in Ashland, Oregon.

He had been diagnosed with cancer in 2013, but kept acting and gave his final performance as the irreverent, larger-than-life, mortality-minded Falstaff at Oregon Shakespeare Festival on July 8.

That day, he pulled off the famed actors’ “hat trick,” playing Falstaff in Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” and both parts of “Henry IV.”