James Ellison
Birth : 1910-05-04, Guthrie Center, Iowa, USA
Death : 1993-12-23
History
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.
Alex 'Longhorn' Gates (as Jimmy Ellison)
A comic look...at Cuba after Castro regime take over.
Dan Winslow (as Jimmie Ellison)
Johnny Mack Brown was nearing the end of his starring career when he appeared in the Monogram oater Dead Man's Trail. Brown and his youthful sidekick Jimmy Ellison come to the aid of imperiled Barbara Allen. At this point, Johnny was too long in tooth and thick around the middle to qualify as a romantic lead, hence the presence of Ellison.
Jim Fallon (as Jimmy Ellison)
As other "B"-western series kept dropping like flies in 1952, Johnny Mack Brown kept grinding 'em out for Monogram. In Man From Black Hills, Johnny tries to help locate his saddle pal Jim Fallan's (James Ellison) long-lost father. Arriving in a small mining town, Johnny and Jim discover that Jim's father has established a financial empire--and that a local opportunist (Randy Brooks) has capitalized on this by claiming to be the old man's son.
Jim Kirby (as Jimmy Ellison)
Johnny Mack Brown substitutes brains for brawn during most of Texas City. Cast once more as a U.S. marshal, Johnny investigates when several government gold shipments are hijacked. Someone has been tipping of the outlaws as to when and where the supposedly secret shipments will take place. The principal suspect is dishonorably discharged cavalry officer Kirby (James Ellison), but Johnny has a gut feeling that Kirby is innocent on all counts.
Sheriff Tod Merrick (as Jimmy Ellison)
A Texas Ranger (Johnny Mack Brown) goes up against the Morrow outlaw gang.
Sheriff Dave Holland (as Jimmy Ellison)
Johnny Mack Brown was recruited by Chet Norman, the owner of a stagecoach line, to end the heist perpetrated by a mysterious knight who plays strange notes with a hiss of money before robbing them.
Clancy
Johnny Mack Brown goes up against a lady bank robber in this average Mack Brown series late-entry from Monogram. The lady, played by Barbara Allen, is of course called "Ma." In order to get the goods on "Ma" and her "brood," Mack Brown must masquerade as a lone bandit.
Jeff Benson
A film director travels to Kentucky to seek out local talent for a hillbilly musical film. There, he gets kidnapped.
Gordon Hastings
A western in which Calamity Jane's (Evelyn Ankers) rightful ownership of a gambling hall is challenged. She nearly loses the business to a shady crook, but Texas lawyer Ellison puts up a legal battle to help her stay in charge. After a sensational fight, the letters proving her right are discovered.
Capt. Jeff Packard
Going undercover as the notorious "Waco Kid," U.S. Army Captain Jeff Packard (Ellison) manages to infiltrate a gang of gold-shipment thieves lead by nasty Walt Anderson (Ted Adams). But Anderson and his gang are not the only troublemakers around: Packard must also contend with Geronimo (Chief Thundercloud) and his Apache warriors, who are demanding guns in exchange for peace.
Shamrock Ellison
As a boy, Shamrock's parents were killed. He took possession of a pistol belonging to his father, a famous marshal. Now that he is grown, he takes the job of marshal and uses the same gun, but he still has to solve the mystery of what happened to his parents.
Shamrock Ellison
Ellison is the star searching for the killer of his parents while Hayden's a not-too-bad bandit leader.
Shamrock Ellison
An outlaw impersonates Shamrock in order to lease his land to an oil company for $75,000.
Shamrock Kid
The Shamrock Kid, Lucky, and The Colonel get caught in a feud between outlaws and homesteaders.
Shamrock Ellison
Shamrock and Lucky team up to drive the Tulliver Brothers out of Heldorado.
Jimmy Ellison
Dance-hall owner Dick Lane is in dire need of some big-name acts or he will lose his business. Several country-western stars come to his rescue by agreeing to appear on a TV special to be broadcast from his club.
Shamrock Ellison
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.
Duke Barnum
A cowboy must clear himself of a murder he did not commit.
Monte Crandall
Young artist Monte Crandell is being sued for an unauthorized caricature. To escape arrest, he disguises himself as a mystic, only to conjure up a genuine ghost during a seance. Things come to a head during his trial, where the invisible ghost takes the witness stand on Our Hero's behalf.
Steve Adams
Around the turn of the century, two young men, Johnnie Bennett, a composer and Steve Adams, an artist, go to New York City to make their fortune. They both fall in love with the same girl, Patricia O'Neill. The artist paints a picture of her which outrages her father's sensibilities; but, as a result of the picture, she wins a chance to star in a Broadway play. She soon learns that the artist is just a trifler; and she turns to the composer, who loves her sincerely
Larry Winters
A young girl arrives in Hollywood determined to become a star in the movies but finds that attaining stardom is a lot more difficult than she counted on. However, she does become a star of sorts — as the owner of a dog who DOES become a movie star.
Mike Burke
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.
Jerry Gibson
Singing, dancing, and ice skating are featured in this musical that focuses on ice-skating sensation Belita. The story begins as she travels to a California resort where she has been hired as a replacement for a dance team. The resort is run by a handsome fellow. As a result of the gig, the skater becomes a national star while the resort manager gets fired and becomes a drifter until he ends up in the Army. The Oscar nominated score includes the following songs: "Silver Shadows and Golden Dreams", "Dream of Dreams", "Rio", "In the Days of Beau Brummel", "Lady, Let's Dance", "Happy Hearts", "Ten Million Men and a Girl", and the rhumba standard "Esperanza".
Andy Mason
A soldier falls for a chorus girl and then experiences trouble when he is posted to the Pacific.
Cadet
Bud Hooper, a cadet at Winsocki Military Academy, sends an invitation to movie star Lucille Ball to come to Winsocki's big dance. Ball's publicity-hungry agent convinces her to go in order to boost her career. Complications arise when Bud's girlfriend Helen Schlesinger unexpectedly shows up, too.
Wesley Rand
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.
Roger Hudson
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.
Capt. James Mason
Drama about military doctors and nurses during wartime.
Robert Curtis
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.
Henry Summers
A secretary by the name of Emily Borden comes up with a convoluted plan to get her boss to marry her which backfires after some bad advice.
Thomas Aldrich
In this espionage movie, set in Washington during WW II, the daughter of an ex-senator has become a dress model. She is approached by an American counter-espionage agent who offers her a chance to serve her country. The carefree son of a naval official receives a similar offer. He is asked to secure secret Naval plans. Unbeknownst to them, the man they work for is actually a Nazi spy. The two dupes finally figure it out, and the spy kidnaps them. Somehow they escape and break up the spy ring.
P. Cadwallader Jones
Like the first entry, this one is played mostly for laughs, with Radio's Mister District Attorney. James Ellison replacing Dennis O'Keefe as feckless assistant DA P. Cadwallader Jones. The publisher of a tony fashion magazine is murdered, requiring Jones to sift through a colorful array of suspects. He is helped (?) along by snoopy girl reporter Terry Parker (Virginia Gilmore), who by default is the brightest character in the picture.
Bob Clemens
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.
Jack Chesney
In 1890, two students at Oxford force their rascally friend and fellow student to pose as an aunt from Brazil--where the nuts come from.
Tim Kelly
A Texas oil millionaire, after failing to secure oil lands in Argentina, seeks out a famous racehorse in Buenos Aires and orders his representative to buy the nag at any price. The representative, Tim Kelly, has a love affair with Lolita O'Shea, the beautiful daughter of the prize horse's owner.
Thomas Elwood Dice
When a gold digger starts to get a little old to ply her trade, she teaches a younger woman all her tricks.
Tony Pringle
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.
Andrew Hinklin
Longtime school sweethearts discover married life, thanks to a disagreeable live-in mother-in-law and pressing business obligations, is more rocky than idyllic.
Mike
A wealthy man hires a poor girl to play his mistress in order to get more attention from his neglectful family.
Jeff Buchanan
Guests at a women's residence club help a jilted small-town girl turn to modelling.
Bill Loomis
A young girl begins to wonder if she really fits into the upper-class sorority she's trying to join.
Jeff Carter
A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
Dan Preston
Saving a dog from the pound gets a man mixed up in murder.
Anthony J. Anthony
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.
Ralph Thurston
A financially-strapped mother and her children relocate from the city to a small rural town.
Keith Morgan
College town life gets turned upside down after a button-down botany professor secretly weds a sizzling night-club singer.
William J. "Bill" Martin
The adventures of three disparate cadets at the US Naval Academy--one the son of a Navy enlisted man, the other the scion of a wealthy family, the third decent but somewhat slow-witted--and their struggles with the rigors of the academy, women, and each other.
Sgt. Robert Gray
Army training Sgt. Gray makes a bet that he can get himself invited to breakfast with his commanding officer, General Markley. But he gets into an unhappy tangle with a couple of enemy spies (and a happy tangle with the general's daughter) before the bet is finally decided.
Johnny Nelson
Hoppy goes undercover as an outlaw (which permits him, for once, to drink and be mean to children) to track down a bunch of outlaws operating along the border. Loco, the head bad guy, deflects suspicion from himself by pretending to be a moron.
Johnny Nelson
Hoppy, Johnny and Windy are fighting a malicious gang trying to stop a cattle drive from reaching a drought-stricken North.
William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill go up against Indians and a gunrunner.
Johnny Nelson
An evil gang is involved in both cattle rustling and the robbing of stagecoaches. Hoppy must stop them without help from the sheriff who turns out be a major outlaw himself.
Johnny Nelson
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.
Johnny Nelson
Problems come in the form of one of Hopalong Cassidy's neighbors, but the matter is settled when Hoppy roots out the troublemaker.
Mac MacDonald
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.
Jimmy Peyton
Brit Amelia Blake travels to America to join her son Alfred. Fate forces her to hitchhike to California, a perilous journey that she shares with kind young Judy Martin. When Judy and another fellow traveler discover the unfortunate truth about Alfred, they struggle to spare Amelia's feelings.
Johnny Nelson
Cattle rustler Nevada dreams of living like an emperor in the West. Hoppy and the Bar 20 boys aim to put an end to his dream.
Johnny Nelson
When the outlaw El Toro saves Hoppy's life, Hoppy agrees to find his missing grandson.
Johnny Nelson
An evil ranch foreman tries to provoke a range war by playing two cattlemen against each other while helping a gang to rustle the cattle. Each cattleman blames the other for missing cattle. With the help of Bill Cassidy (Hop-along, because of an earlier bullet wound) and Johnny Nelson, the warring cattlemen join forces to do in the outlaws.
Dale Every
A theatrical star, born on the wrong side of the tracks, marries a drunken blue-blood millionaire.
Jimmy
A barber tries to find the winning lottery ticket he hid from his moralistic wife.
Detective (uncredited)
An embezzler who expects to serve his time in prison and then pick up his buried loot is in for a surprise.
Reporter Lane (uncredited)
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglers", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.
Elmer
A young innocent falls for a compulsive gambler.
