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James Ellison

James Ellison

Acting

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. James Ellison (May 4, 1910 - December 23, 1993) was an American actor, born James Ellison Smith in Guthrie Center, Iowa, son of Edward James Smith and Ona Mary Ellis. Ellison appeared in nearly seventy films between 1932 and 1962. Ellison worked for a time in a film laboratory and while there was offered a screen test. He developed it himself and when he saw it, decided it was not satisfactory so he would not show it to the director. But he saw it anyway and Ellison got a contract. Despite his rugged good looks and height of 6 feet 3 inches, Ellison's limited range and somewhat wooden screen presence kept him from the first (or even second) ranks of stardom. He spent much of his career in Westerns, including a stint in the mid-thirties as the sidekick of Hopalong Cassidy in Paramount's successful series. In 1938, he played a charming, romantic character opposite 26 year old Lucille Ball in the comedy, "Next Time I Marry", a film where Ball had her first top billing on screen credits. Before that, in 1936, he played his highest-profile role, as Buffalo Bill in Cecil B. DeMille's The Plainsman, which also starred Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. Despite that film's success, Ellison spent most of the remainder of his career shuttling between cowboy pictures and more varied roles, primarily in B movies with titles like Mr. District Attorney in the Carter Case and The Undying Monster. He had a supporting role in 1941's Charley's Aunt (which starred Jack Benny) and played the romantic lead in 1943's The Gang's All Here, a Twentieth Century Fox musical in which he seemed somewhat lost among the vivid antics of Carmen Miranda, Charlotte Greenwood, and Edward Everett Horton (and was the only principal not to sing a note). He also co-starred with Tom Conway and Frances Dee in Val Lewton's production of I Walked with a Zombie, directed by Jacques Tourneur. Ellison landed another romantic lead role as 'Jerry Gibson' in the musical film Lady, Let's Dance (1944) which starred ice skating sensation 'Belita'. In the early 1950s, Ellison moved from acting to real estate. Joining fellow veteran Jackie Coogan, Ellison returned to the screen only once to play Axel 'Longhorn' Gates in a picture called When the Girls Take Over (1962). James Ellison died at age 83 in Monterey, California after suffering a broken neck as the result of a fall. Description above from the Wikipedia article James Ellison (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

I Walked with a Zombie
6.8

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

I Walked with a Zombie

1943
Vivacious Lady
7.0

College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.

Vivacious Lady

1938
G.I. War Brides
9.0

Linda Powell, and English girl, stows away on a ship bound for the United States in order to join the G.I. she loves. She assumes the identity of an English war bride, Joyce Giles, who has decided she no longer loves the American soldier she married and is not going to join him in the U.S. Linda arrives to find that her soldier no longer wishes to marry her...

G.I. War Brides

1946
Zenobia
4.9

A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.

Zenobia

1939
The Plainsman
6.5

Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Buffalo Bill go up against Indians and a gunrunner.

The Plainsman

1936
Sorority House
7.3

A young girl begins to wonder if she really fits into the upper-class sorority she's trying to join.

Sorority House

1939
Reckless
5.1

A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.

Reckless

1935
The Gang's All Here
5.9

A soldier falls for a chorus girl and then experiences trouble when he is posted to the Pacific.

The Gang's All Here

1943
The Winning Ticket
4.3

A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.

The Winning Ticket

1935
Kentucky Jubilee
6.0

A film director travels to Kentucky to seek out local talent for a hillbilly musical film. There, he gets kidnapped.

Kentucky Jubilee

1951
Anne of Windy Poplars
6.0

Sentimental drama about an ambitious young teacher who arrives in a small town to take the job of vice-principal. Based on one of L M Montgomery's 'Anne of Green Gables' sequels.

Anne of Windy Poplars

1940
Crooked River
5.0

Ellison is the star searching for the killer of his parents while Hayden's a not-too-bad bandit leader.

Crooked River

1950
Ice-Capades
5.9

Bob Clemens is a cameraman for newsreels. Assigned to shoot the Swiss ice skater Karen Vadja, he arrives too late, so decides to film a woman skating on a different New York rink and pass her off as Karen. The scheme backfires when promoter Larry Herman takes a look at Bob's film and decides to make the skater a star. Unfortunately, it's actually amateur (and illegal immigrant) Marie Bergin in the newsreel footage, not the great figure skater from Switzerland. Chaos ensues as Bob tries to straighten everybody out.

Ice-Capades

1941
Call of the Prairie
5.8

Hoppy returns to find Johnny in trouble. Buck Peters has been shot by Porter who made it look like Johnny did it. When Johnny flees he runs into Linda. He takes a liking to her only to learn her father Shanghai is one of Porter's gang. Going after Shanghai, he gets captured by the gang and Porter now plans to kill him. But Hoppy is near by and Johnny will get unexpected help from Shanghai.

Call of the Prairie

1936
The Undying Monster
5.8

A werewolf prowls around at night but only kills certain members of one family. It seems like just a coincidence, but the investigating Inspector soon finds out that this tradition has gone on for generations and tries to find a link between the werewolf and the family, leading to a frightening conclusion.

The Undying Monster

1942
Dixie Dugan
6.5

Roger Hudson, a wealthy businessman who has moved to Washington to work for the government as a "dollar a year man," is late for a radio broadcast about his new department, the Mobilization of Woman Power for War. He takes a cab driven by Dixie Dugan, who hopes that being a cabbie while the country's men are away fighting will help the war effort. Her incompetent driving, however, results in an accident for which Roger must take responsibility in order to reach the radio station in time. Dixie then returns home, where she lives with her father Timothy, who is constantly practicing his air raid warden duties, her mother Gladys, an aspiring Red Cross worker, and cousin Imogene, who studies incessantly to become a "quiz kid." The Dugans rent out their spare rooms to Dixie's fiancé, Matt Hogan, and to blustering Judge J. J. Lawson. Matt, who works in a munitions factory, wants Dixie to settle down and marry him, but Dixie is determined to help her country.

Dixie Dugan

1943
The Leathernecks Have Landed
7.0

Dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Marines after starting a barroom brawl that gets his leatherneck buddy "Tubby" Waters killed, hothead "Woody" Davis infiltrates a gang of Shanghai gunrunners to bring the culprit to justice.

The Leathernecks Have Landed

1936
Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore
7.0

A young girl rents an apartment from a man who has recently enlisted in the Marines. The trouble is that he's given out keys to a half-dozen of his friends, and they all keep dropping in.

Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore

1944
Next Time I Marry
7.3

Heiress Nancy Crocker Fleming will only receive her inheritance if she marries a "plain American." Her late father was afraid a foreign gigolo would steal her heart and money. So Nancy pays Tony Anthony, working on a WPA road project, to marry, then divorce her. When Nancy inadvertently drives off with Tony's dog, Tony seemingly kidnaps her to retrieve the pooch, which leads to a cross-country race between the two to reach Reno and the divorce court since neither one wants to be the second to file papers.

Next Time I Marry

1938
Hostile Country
4.3

In this remake of No Man's Range (1935), Shamrock travels to the ranch of his stepfather who he has never met and finds himself caught in the middle of a range war.

Hostile Country

1950