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James Neville Mason (May 15, 1909 – July 27, 1984) was a three-time Academy Award nominated English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films.

Early life

Mason was born in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England to John and Mabel Mason; his father was a wealthy merchant. Mason had no formal training as an actor. He studied architecture at Peterhouse, Cambridge but got involved in the theatre in his spare time, before working at the Old Vic theatre in London and with the Gate Company in Dublin.

James Mason Court, a road in the Marsh area of Huddersfield, is named after him.

Career

From 1935 to 1948 he starred in many British quota quickies. A conscientious objector during World War II, he became immensely popular for his brooding anti-heroes in the Gainsborough series of melodramas of the 1940s, including The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady. In 1949 he made his first Hollywood film, Caught, and then went on to star in many more feature films and early TV shows. Nominated three times for an Oscar, he never won one.

Mason's distinctive voice enabled him to play a menacing villain as greatly as his good looks assisted him as a leading man. His roles include the declining actor in the 1954 version of A Star Is Born, a mortally wounded terrorist in Odd Man Out (1946), Brutus in the 1953 film of Julius Caesar, General Erwin Rommel twice, once in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel in 1951, and in The Desert Rats (1953), Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), a suave masterspy in North by Northwest (1959), a determined explorer in Journey to the Center of the Earth (also 1959) and Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962). One of his last roles, that of a corrupt lawyer in The Verdict (1982), earned him his third and final Oscar nomination.

Private life

He was married twice:

• The actress Pamela Kellino (1941-1965); one daughter Portland and one son Morgan
• The actress Clarissa Kaye (1971-1984)

James Mason was a devoted lover of animals, particularly cats. He and Pamela Kellino co-authored the book The Cats in Our Lives, which was published in 1949. James Mason wrote most of the book and also illustrated it. In The Cats in Our Lives, he recounted humorous and sometimes touching tales of the cats (as well as a few dogs) he had known and loved.

In the late 1970s, Mason became a mentor to up-and-coming actor Sam Neill, who went on to have a successful career of his own.

James Mason's autobiography, Before I Forget, was published in 1981.

Mason survived a major heart attack in 1959 and died as a result of another on July 27, 1984 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He was cremated, and (after a delay of 16 years) his ashes were buried in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. His old friend Charlie Chaplin is in a tomb a few steps away.

His son Morgan Mason is married to Belinda Carlisle, the former lead singer of The Go-Go's.

Popular culture

Graham Kennedy would use an imitation of James' distinctive voice as the default voice for an educated or English person on the Australian game show Blankety Blanks. As a matter of fact, Kennedy used Mason's voice for the first question on the first show.

In 1991, Kelsey Grammer spoofed Mason as Captain Nemo in a skit while hosting Saturday Night Live. During the skit Nemo had to try to explain various units of nautical measurements while fighting off a giant squid.

For his audition for Saturday Night Live in 2005, Bill Hader gave an impersonation as Mason at a donut store trying to redeem an expired coupon.

Filmography

• Late Extra (1935)
• Twice Branded (1936)
• Troubled Waters (1936)
• Secret of Stamboul (1936)
• Prison Breaker (1936)
• The High Command (1936)
• Blind Man's Bluff (1936)
• The Mill on the Floss (1937)
• Catch As Catch Can (1937)
• Fire Over England (1937)
• Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937)
• I Met a Murderer (1939)
• The Patient Vanishes (1941)
• Hatter's Castle (1941)
• The Night Has Eyes (1942)
• Alibi (1942)
• Secret Mission (1942)
• Thunder Rock (1943)
• The Bells Go Down (1943)
• The Man in Grey (1943)
• They Met in the Dark (1943)
• Hotel Reserve (1944)
• Fanny by Gaslight (1944)
• Candlelight in Algeria (1944)
• A Place of One's Own (1945)
• They Were Sisters (1945)
• The Wicked Lady (1945)
• The Seventh Veil (1945)
• Odd Man Out (1947)
• The Upturned Glass (1947)
• Caught (1949, by Max Ophüls)
• Madame Bovary (1949)
• The Reckless Moment (1949, by Max Ophüls)
• East Side, West Side (1949)
• One Way Street (1950)
• Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
• The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)
• Lady Possessed (1952) (also producer and writer)
• 5 Fingers (1952)
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1952)
• Face to Face (1952)
• Charade (1953) (also producer and writer)
• The Story of Three Loves (1953)
• Botany Bay (1953)
• The Desert Rats (1953)
• Julius Caesar (1953, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
• The Man Between (1953)
• The Tell-Tale Heart (1953) (animated short subject) (voice)
• Prince Valiant (1954)
• A Star Is Born (1954, by George Cukor)
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
• Forever, Darling (1956)
• Bigger Than Life (1956, by Nicholas Ray) (also producer and writer)
• Island in the Sun (1957)
• Cry Terror! (1958)
• The Decks Ran Red (1958)
• A Touch of Larceny (1959)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
• The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960)
• The Marriage-Go-Round (1961)
• Escape from Zahrain (1962)
• Lolita (1962)
• Hero's Island (1962)
• Tiara Tahiti (1962)
• Torpedo Bay (1963)
• The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
• The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
• Lord Jim (1965)
• Genghis Khan (1965)
• The Uninhibited (1965)
• The Blue Max (1966)
• Georgy Girl (1966)
• The Deadly Affair (1966)
• The London Nobody Knows (1967) (documentary) (narrator)
• Stranger in the House (1967)
• Vienna: The Years Remembered (1968) (short subject)
• Duffy (1968)
• Mayerling (1968)
• The Sea Gull (1968, by Sidney Lumet)
• Age of Consent (1969)
• The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go (1970)
• Spring and Port Wine (1970)
• Cold Sweat (1970)
• Bad Man's River (1971)
• Kill! (1971)
• Child's Play (1972)
• The Last of Sheila (1973)
• The MacKintosh Man (1973)
• The Marseille Contract (1974)
• 11 Harrowhouse (1974)
• The Year of the Wildebeest (1975) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Left Hand of the Law (1975)
• The Flower in His Mouth (1975)
• Mandingo (1975)
• Kidnap Syndicate (1975)
• Autobiography of a Princess (1975, by James Ivory)
• Inside Out (1975)
• Hot Stuff (1976)
• People of the Wind (1976) (documentary) (narrator)
• Voyage of the Damned (1976)
• Jesus of Nazareth (1977) (mini TV Series)
• Cross of Iron (1977)
• Homage to Chagall: The Colours of Love (1977) (documentary) (narrator in English version)
• The Water Babies (1978) (voice)
• Heaven Can Wait (1978)
• The Boys from Brazil (1978)
• Murder by Decree (1979)
• The Passage (1979)
• Bloodline (1979)
• Salem's Lot (1979) (for American TV)
• North Sea Hijack (1980)
• A Dangerous Summer (1981)
• Evil Under the Sun (1982)
• The Verdict (1982)
• Group Madness (1983) (documentary)
• Alexandre (1983)
• Yellowbeard (1983)
• The Shooting Party (1985, by Alan Bridges)
• The Assisi Underground (1985)

External links

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