Actor profile
James Flavin
American character actor whose career lasted nearly half a century. James Wilson Flavin Jr. was the son of a hotel waiter of Canadian-English extraction and a mother, Katherine, whose father was an Irish immigrant. (Thus Flavin, well-known in Hollywood as an "Irish" type, was only one-quarter Irish.) Flavin was born and raised in Portland, Maine (a fact that may have enrichened his later working relationship with director John Ford, also a Portland native). He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, but (contrary to some sources) did not graduate. Instead he dropped out and returned to Portland where he drove a taxi. Then as now, summer stock companies flocked to Maine each year, and in 1929 he was asked to fill in for an actor. He did well with the part and the company manager offered him $150 per week to go with the troupe back to New York. Flavin accepted and by the spring of 1930 was living in a rooming house at 108 W. 87th Street in Manhattan. Flavin didn't manage to crack Broadway at this time (his Broadway debut would not occur for another thirty-nine years, in the 1971 revival of "The Front Page," in which Flavin played Murphy and briefly took over the lead role of Walter Burns from star Robert Ryan). He worked his way across the country in stock productions and tours, arriving in Los Angeles around 1932. He quickly made the transition to movies, landing the lead in his very first film, a Universal serial, The Airmail Mystery (1932). He also landed his leading lady, marrying the serial's female star Lucile Browne that same year. However, the serial marked virtually the last time that Flavin would play the lead in a film. Thereafter, he was restricted almost exclusively to supporting characters, many of them without so much as a name. He specialized in uniformed cops and hard-bitten detectives, but played chauffeurs, cabbies, and even a 16th-century palace guard with aplomb. Flavin appeared in nearly four hundred films between 1932 and 1971, and in almost a hundred television episodes before his final appearance, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976). Flavin died of a heart ailment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on April 23, 1976. His widow Lucile died seventeen days later. They were survived by their son, William James Flavin, subsequently a professor at the United States Army War College. James and Lucile Brown Flavin were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
277 Movies
44 TV Shows
321 Credits
Filmography
Movies & TV Shows
Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident
29th September 1976 as President Dwight D. Eisenhower
As We Forgive
1st January 1952
Flamingo Road
30th April 1949
Mr. Winkle Goes to War
19th July 1944
There's Something About a Soldier
30th November 1943
Action in the North Atlantic
12th June 1943 as Merchant Marine School Lieutenant-Commander (uncredited)
The Brady Bunch
26th September 1969
The Pruitts of Southampton
6th September 1966
Sam Benedict
15th September 1962
Mister Ed
5th January 1961
Surfside 6
6th October 1960
Pete and Gladys
19th September 1960
Coronado 9
6th September 1960
Johnny Midnight
3rd January 1960
Man with a Camera
10th October 1958
The Rifleman
30th September 1958
Matinee Theater
31st October 1955
December Bride
4th October 1954
Public Defender
11th March 1954
City Detective
7th September 1953
Cavalcade of America
1st October 1952
Dangerous Assignment
1st January 1952
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
5th October 1951
Racket Squad
7th June 1951
