page_title: John Dall
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: John Dall / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Social Security Application of actor John Dall dated 11 September 1937, under his birth name John Dall Thompson.
context_page_description: John Dall was an American actor.
  Primarily a stage actor, he is best remembered today for two film roles: the cool-minded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, and the trigger-happy lead in the 1950 film noir Gun Crazy. He also had a substantial role in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus. He first came to fame as the young prodigy who comes alive under the tutelage of Bette Davis in The Corn Is Green, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
context_section_description: John Dall Thompson (he used his middle name for his acting career) was born in New York City on 26 May 1920, the younger son of Charles Jenner Thompson (1873–1929) and his wife Henry  (née Worthington). (Sources which cite Dall's birth name as John Jenner Thompson and his birth year as 1918 appear to be in error.) His father was a civil engineer. His elder brother, Worthington Thompson, was later a decorated lieutenant in the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team.
  In the 1920s the Thompsons moved to Panama, where Charles worked on the construction of the airport there. While in Panama, Dall was in a theatre when a cast member fell ill and Dall stepped in; this caused him to get the desire to act. His father committed suicide in 1929, and his widow returned to New York City with John the following year.
  John attended Horace Mann School and briefly enrolled at Columbia University, where he intended to follow in his father's footsteps by studying engineering. Deciding that acting was his true vocation, he left Columbia and studied at the Theodora Irvine School of Theater and the Pasadena Playhouse. He also studied at the Petit Theatre in New Orleans.
caption: Dall's Social Security application (1937)
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