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James Flavin

James Flavin

Actor · 1906 – 1976 · Portland, Maine, USA

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.

Movies24

  • Movie7.0
  • Movie7.6

    King Kong

    1933 · 1.7K votes

  • Movie7.8

    The Grapes of Wrath

    1940 · 1.1K votes

  • Movie7.6

    Laura

    1944 · 943 votes

  • Movie7.5
  • Movie7.5

    In Cold Blood

    1967 · 450 votes

  • Movie6.9

    The Most Dangerous Game

    1932 · 327 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Saboteur

    1942 · 562 votes

  • Movie6.7

    Cheyenne Autumn

    1964 · 151 votes

  • Movie6.4

    Mighty Joe Young

    1949 · 125 votes

  • Movie7.1

    You Only Live Once

    1937 · 196 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Nightmare Alley

    1947 · 243 votes

  • Movie7.0

    Mister Roberts

    1955 · 185 votes

  • Movie7.6

    Mildred Pierce

    1945 · 464 votes

  • Movie7.6

    My Man Godfrey

    1936 · 406 votes

  • Movie7.1
  • Movie6.9

    Heaven Can Wait

    1943 · 252 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Ziegfeld Girl

    1941 · 39 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Jesse James

    1939 · 115 votes

  • Movie6.8

    Anchors Aweigh

    1945 · 169 votes

  • Movie6.9

    O. Henry's Full House

    1952 · 48 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Wings of Eagles

    1957 · 72 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Unconquered

    1947 · 67 votes

  • Movie6.6

    The Long Voyage Home

    1940 · 105 votes

Series24

  • TV5.7

    Dr. Kildare

    1961 · 19 votes

  • TV7.1

    The Rifleman

    1958 · 54 votes

  • TV5.3

    Matinee Theater

    1955 · 7 votes

  • TV8.5

    The Twilight Zone

    1959 · 1.1K votes

  • TV6.8

    Four Star Playhouse

    1952 · 11 votes

  • TV3.8

    Climax!

    1954 · 12 votes

  • TV7.9

    I Love Lucy

    1951 · 264 votes

  • TV7.8

    Alfred Hitchcock Presents

    1955 · 266 votes

  • TV6.3

    Burke's Law

    1963 · 12 votes

  • TV7.1

    The Lucy Show

    1962 · 53 votes

  • TV5.8

    The Millionaire

    1955 · 4 votes

  • TV8.0

    The Addams Family

    1964 · 457 votes

  • TV6.3

    Surfside 6

    1960 · 3 votes

  • TV6.7

    The Brady Bunch

    1969 · 168 votes

  • TV7.3

    Mr. Novak

    1963 · 3 votes

  • TV6.8

    Mister Ed

    1961 · 57 votes

  • TV5.7

    State Trooper

    1956 · 7 votes

  • TV6.3

    December Bride

    1954 · 4 votes

  • TV7.2

    It Takes a Thief

    1968 · 26 votes

  • TV5.2

    Navy Log

    1955 · 5 votes

  • TV6.8
  • TV6.7

    Sam Benedict

    1962 · 3 votes

  • TV7.0

    Alcoa Theatre

    1957 · 7 votes

  • TV7.2