Age 25-26, 1961 to 1962 - Tommy co-started in the TV series MARGIE, for 26 episodes, playing Margie's boyfriend, Haywood Botts. He found it great to be able to perfect the character by doing it over and over again in so many different ways.

The series was about teenagers in the roaring 20's. Tommy looked so young (he was 25 years old) that he was able to play a believable 17 year old! Below is a typical night at the movies with girlfriend Margie. Movies were THE entertainment, there was no TV in those day, Folks!

This was the closest Tommy ever came to being a leading man in the movies. He seemed to now be type cast as playing a "ten-thumbed, bumbling boyfriend who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time". It's a cruel world...!!!

Margie would have vivid dreams at night. Here she was a nurse in World War I who saved "The Hero" Haywood's life after a bomb blast. Tommy tasted that gritty dust for a week after they hit him in the face with a big bucket of dirt for this scene!

They even ran away to get married one time (check out those knicker pants - pretty spiffy huh?) but they got cold feet and it never happened. Tommy should've taken a lesson from this in his later real-life and NOT done it three (count 'em) three times!

Tommy even dumped Margie for her girlfriend (Maybelle) in one episode. But, you can see by the look of their faces, it didn't go too swimmingly. Besides, who would go out with a nerd who looked like this. Nice hair, Dude...!!!

But don't judge a book by it's cover. If pushed to the limit, as Margie did quite frequently, that could be one step too far and the WRATH of HAYWOOD BOTTS could be unleashed. Be afraid, be VERY afraid...!!!

Spit polish Haywood up, put a set of shoulder pads on him, and voila...!!! He looks almost as good as TV Tommy Ivo did later on in a thick multilayered fire suit at the drag races. A little padding goes a long way if you're a Munchkin...!!!

This picture was taken on the Margie set when the studio grounded Tommy from Drag Racing (at the same time that Don Prudhomme got his first professional ride).

He hung up his Hollywood movie and TV career when the Margie TV Series ended. TV Tommy Ivo devoted himself to Drag Racing from that point on, and the rest is history...!!!