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James Flavin
Known for: ActingAmerican 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.
Filmography 66
King Kong
as Mate Briggs 
The Living Christ
as Longinus 
The Ghost Breakers
as Hotel Porter (uncredited) 
You Only Live Once
as State Trooper (uncredited) 
Laura
as Det. McEveety (uncredited) 
In Cold Blood
as Clarence Duntz 
Anchors Aweigh
as Radio Cop 
The Most Dangerous Game
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as First Mate on Yacht (uncredited) 
Mighty Joe Young
as Schultz 
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
as Police Detective #1 
Air Force
as Maj. A.M. Bagley 
The Long Voyage Home
as Dock Policeman 
Desert Fury
as Pat Johnson 
Million Dollar Mermaid
as Conductor 
Operation Pacific
as SP Commander 
Belle Starr
as Sergeant 
Night Passage
as Tim Riley 
Broadway Melody of 1940
as Clancy (uncredited) 
Cloak and Dagger
as Col. Walsh 
Nobody Lives Forever
as Shake Thomas 
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
as Insp. Wellman 
One Touch of Venus
as Kerrigan 
Sleep, My Love
as Lieutenant Mitchell 
Trouble Along the Way
as Coach Buck Holman 
I Am the Law
as George - Witness (uncredited) 
Nora Prentiss
as District Attorney 
The Restless Breed
as Secret Service Chief 
It Happened on Fifth Avenue
as First Policeman (uncredited) 
The Noose Hangs High
as Traffic Cop (uncredited) 
Angel on My Shoulder
as Dan Bellamy 
Never Say Goodbye
as Timmy 
Armored Car Robbery
as Lt. Phillips 
A Stolen Life
as Investigator (uncredited) 
Man on the Flying Trapeze
as Chauffeur (uncredited) 
The Naked Street
as Attorney Michael X. Flanders 
Once Upon a Time
as Man in Subway (uncredited) 
The Velvet Touch
as Sgt. Oliphant 
Charlie Chan at the Race Track
as Detective 
Francis in the Haunted House
as Police Chief Martin 
Confidentially Connie
as Harry (uncredited) 
Easy to Wed
as Joe 
The Ice Follies of 1939
as Doorman (uncredited) 
Four Mothers
as Demolition Man (uncredited) 
Fingers at the Window
as Police Lieutenant Schaeffer 
Here Come the Marines
as Lieutenant-Colonel at End 
The Plunderers
as Sergeant Major 
The Affairs of Cellini
as Palace Guard (uncredited) 
Pot o' Gold
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as Sheriff Bud Connolly 
Mr. Wong in Chinatown
as Police Sgt. Jerry 
Murder on the Waterfront
as Cmdr. Kalin 
The Shanghai Cobra
as H.R. Jarvis 
Hello, Sister!
as Fireman 
Robin Hood Of Texas
as Captain Danforth 
Blondie Hits the Jackpot
as Brophy 
It All Came True
as Roaring 90's Club Doorman (uncredited) 
Tough as They Come
as Process Server 
I Beheld His Glory
as Longinus 
The Brand of Hate
as Holt Larkins 
Mannequin
as Burly Man (Uncredited) 
The Missing Lady
as Police Insp. Cardona 
Lightning Carson Rides Again
as Justice Department Agent 
Wives Under Suspicion
as Jenks (uncredited) 
Hold That Hypnotist
as Jake Morgan 
Over 21
as Captain (uncredited) 
South Sea Sinner
as Andrews