James Stephenson
Birthday: 1889-04-14 | Place of Birth: Selby, Yorkshire, England, UKBritish stage actor James Stephenson made his film debut quite late in life, at the age of 49, in 1937, making four pictures that year. Warner Bros. got a glimpse of this distinguished gent and signed him to a contract where he indulged himself in urbane villainy. Proving a reliable support in such films as Boy Meets Girl (1938), You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), and the classic adventure The Sea Hawk (1940), he was entrusted by director William Wyler and mega-star Bette Davis to play the sympathetic role of the family attorney Howard Joyce in The Letter (1940). It was the role of a lifetime and he didn't let them down for he earned an Oscar nomination in the process. Stephenson was soon on a roll, playing the titular sleuth in Calling Philo Vance (1940) and was first-billed in the above-average "B" movie Shining Victory (1941) when he died suddenly in 1941 of a heart attack at the rather young age of 53. Date of Death: 29 July 1941, Pacific Palisades, California (heart attack)
Known For
Acting
Role
as Dr. Lawrence 'Larry' Stevens
as Abbott
as Carew
as Howard Joyce
as Inspector Thornton
as Joe Garvey
as McDowell
as Philo Vance
as Bill Stevens
as British Military Intelligence Agent
as Col. Armand Lucien
as Colonel Tillman
as Dr. Anton Rader
as Dr. George Vanders
as Dr. Mansfield
as Jim Cameron
as Jim Ralston
as Major Henri de Beaujolais
as Senor De La Torre
as Sir Thomas Egerton
as Sir William Clintock
as Challon
as Phillip Corey
as Prof. Landis
as Stephen Gore
