Vale: James Whitmore

James Whitmore, the veteran Emmy-winning actor died of lung cancer at his home in Malibu on Friday. He was 87.

Although best known as a movie actor, Whitmore starred in three TV series: the 1960-62 legal drama The Law and Mr. Jones, the 1969 detective drama My Friend Tony and the 1972-74 hospital sitcom Temperature’s Rising. But he was a guest actor in classic shows including Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildare, Disneyland, Bonanza, and Ben Casey.

In 2000 he won an Emmy Award as outstanding guest actor in a drama series for The Practice, and received a 2003 Emmy nomination in the same category for Mister Sterling.

But it was movies and theatre for which he was best known.

In 1948, he won a Tony Award for the Broadway production of Command Decision and an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in his second movie, the hit 1949 World War II drama Battleground.

Supporting roles and occasional leads in some 50 movies followed over the next 50-plus years, including The Asphalt Jungle, Them!, Kiss Me Kate, Battle Cry, Oklahoma!, Planet of the Apes (pictured), Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Serpent’s Egg, Nuts, The Shawshank Redemption and The Majestic.

His 1975 performance in Give ’em Hell, Harry! earned a best actor Oscar nomination.

“I owe a lot to Whitmore,” James Dean once told Seventeen magazine in 1955. “One thing he said helped more than anything. He told me I didn’t know the difference between acting as a soft job and acting as a difficult art.”

For his part, Whitmore remained modest about his own acting talent.

“I never thought I was good,” he told the Palm Beach Post in 2002. “I’ve touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand.”

His last role was in a 2007 episode of CSI.

Source: LA Times