James McCallion

Character actor James McCallion began his performing career as a child in the 1920s and acted on screen until the 1970s. He began acting on Broadway as a 9-year-old, opposite Errol Flynn in "Yours Truly." His film career began with several roles in 1939, including one in the drama "Pride of the Blue Grass," with Edith Fellows. After a hiatus that lasted a decade and a half, he returned in the 1954 adventure "Vera Cruz," a Robert Aldrich film starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster. In the 1950s he appeared with Edward G. Robinson in "Illegal," a noir thriller playing gangster Allen Parker, and had a small part in Alfred Hitchcock's "North By Northwest." He also appeared in the great director's TV show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," as well as numerous other TV dramas. His biggest television part was a starring role in "National Velvet," a series that ran for two seasons, beginning in 1960. He had a role in the biographical film "PT 109," based on the wartime experiences of John F. Kennedy, and was a supporting actor in the 1965 comedy "Strange Bedfellows." Many of his later film roles came in Westerns, such as the 1970 comedic feature "Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County" and the drama "Gunfight in Abilene." He was also a frequent guest star on the detective dramas of the era like "Cannon," "Ironside," and"The Streets of San Francisco."