James Anderson (actor, 1921)

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James Anderson (born July 13, 1921 in Wetumpka , Alabama , † September 14, 1969 in Billings , Montana ) was an American actor.

Life

Born in Alabama, James Anderson followed his older sister Mary Anderson (1918-2014) into the acting business. In 1941 he made his film debut in the war drama Sergeant York with Gary Cooper in the lead role, directed by Howard Hawks . Several small film roles for Anderson followed by 1942, before he interrupted his beginning Hollywood career and fought in World War II. He did not return to Hollywood until the late 1940s, where he initially only received small roles. In the 1950s, Anderson made a name for himself as an actor in B-Westerns, where he mostly played rough gunslingers or dark bandits. Many western TV series such as Smoking Colts , At the Foot of the Blue Mountains , A Thousand Miles of Dust and Bonanza regularly cast Anderson according to this type of role as a villain. The character actor practically never got beyond supporting roles, only in some B-films like The Last Five (1951), where he played one of five survivors of a nuclear attack, he was able to get bigger roles.

Anderson made his most famous appearance today in the 1962 film classic Who disturbs the nightingale, directed by Robert Mulligan , based on the novel by Harper Lee . Here he embodied the backwoods and racist Bob Ewell, who is bringing an overtly innocent African American to court. James Anderson died of a heart attack in 1969 at the age of 48, and his last two films were not released until after his death. In total, the actor played in around 145 film and television productions between 1941 and 1970. He was buried in the Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Anderson in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 16, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Anderson, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Wetumpka , Alabama
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1969
Place of death Billings , Montana