March 12, 1931 – October 10, 1980
For some reason, it is incredibly difficult to find a picture of William “Billie” Thomas, Jr. from after 1943. One look at the kid in the picture above and you get a good feeling for why that’s the case. Thomas played the iconic role of “Buckwheat” in more than 80 of the classic Our Gang shorts of the 1930’s and ’40’s – and then sort of disappeared. In fact, the only picture I could find of Thomas’ post-Buckwheat days was this:
Thomas (right) with Joe Cobb and Spanky
Celebrity Graveland 