James Stephenson
Actor
Biography
British 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)
Filmography
The Sea Hawk
as Abbott 1940
Beau Geste
as Major Henri de Beaujolais 1939
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
as Sir Thomas Egerton 1939
The Old Maid
as Jim Ralston 1939
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
as British Military Intelligence Agent 1939
King of the Underworld
as Bill Stevens 1939
Nancy Drew… Detective
as Challon 1938
Devil's Island
as Col. Armand Lucien 1939
A Dispatch from Reuters
as Carew 1940
Calling Philo Vance
as Philo Vance 1940
Sons of Liberty
as Colonel Tillman 1939
When Were You Born
as Phillip Corey 1938
Espionage Agent
as Dr. Anton Rader 1939
Shining Victory
as Dr. Paul Venner 1941
Flight from Destiny
as Dr. Lawrence 'Larry' Stevens 1941
Murder in the Air
as Joe Garvey 1940