James Bush Biography

From 1932 until his retirement sometime in the early 1950s, American general purpose actor James Bush trafficked in faceless minor roles: Bush played one of the Twelve Oaks party guests in Gone With the Wind (1939). In W.C. Fields' You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), wherein Bush was cast as Constance Moore's dishwater-dull fiance Roger Bel-Goodie. Evidently, he struck a responsive chord with the team of Laurel and Hardy: he was prominently cast in three of the team's 20th Century-Fox vehicles, A-Haunting We Will Go (1942), Jitterbugs (1943, as the gangster who expands and levitates to the ceiling after consuming one of Hardy's "gas pills") and The Big Noise (1944). One of James Bush's more noticeable post-war screen roles was Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence in The Beginning or the End (1947), MGM's dramatization of the Manhattan Project. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi