James Stephenson
Date of birth: 1889-04-13
Place of birth: Selby, Yorkshire, England, UK
Known for: Acting
Also known as:
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)
Movie Credits
Devil's Island
1939-01-07
A French doctor sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's daughter.
The Sea Hawk
1940-08-10
Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with D
King of the Underworld
1939-01-14
Physician Carole Nelson, suspected of having ties to notorious gangster Joe Gurney, must prove her i
Beau Geste
1939-07-24
When three brothers join the Foreign Legion to escape a troubled past, they find themselves trapped
The Old Maid
1939-08-16
The lives of two cousins are complicated by the return of an ex-boyfriend and an illegitimate child.
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
1939-11-11
This period drama frames the tumultuous affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the man who would be Ki
Nancy Drew… Detective
1938-11-19
After a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, N
The Letter
1940-11-21
After a woman shoots a man to death, a damning letter she wrote raises suspicions.
Murder in the Air
1940-06-01
Enemy agents are everywhere and they are sabotaging all important war deliveries. The body of a hobo
Espionage Agent
1939-09-30
When Barry Corvall discovers that his new bride is a possible enemy agent, he resigns from the diplo
The Monroe Doctrine
1939-10-14
The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.
Flight from Destiny
1941-02-08
After his doctor informs him he will die in six months, Professor Henry Todhunter decides to spend h
Wolf of New York
1940-01-23
A New York attorney defends a young man with a criminal past who has been accused of murdering a pol
Secret Service of the Air
1939-03-04
Brass Bancroft and his sidekick Gabby Watters are recruited onto the secret service and go undercove
On Trial
1939-04-01
An ambitious attorney (Edward Norris) tries to prove a man (John Litel) who killed to protect his wi
River's End
1940-08-10
An escaped criminal pretends to be a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to prove h
Calling Philo Vance
1940-02-03
Philo is in Vienna working for the US Government to see if Archer Coe is selling aircraft designs to
The Adventures of Jane Arden
1939-03-18
Reporter Jane Arden goes undercover to try to expose a gang of jewel thieves and smugglers. Her miss
When Were You Born
1938-06-18
A San Francisco astrologer correctly predicts a ship passenger's death and then helps the police loo
Shining Victory
1941-05-30
In a Scottish sanitarium, a brilliant research psychiatrist works on a treatment for dementia praeco
Sons of Liberty
1939-05-20
Set during the American Revolution, this colorful 2 reel short tells the story of Haym Salomon, Amer
White Banners
1938-06-23
A homeless woman named Hannah drifts into the lives of the kindly Ward family, in a small Indiana to
Wanted by Scotland Yard
1939-04-19
A safecracker, just released from prison, falls in love with a young woman who wants him to go strai
Cowboy from Brooklyn
1938-07-09
A singing cowboy turns out to be a tenderfoot.
Boy Meets Girl
1938-08-27
Two lazy screenwriters need a story for the studio's cowboy star. A studio waitress turns out to be
South of Suez
1940-11-16
Greedy diamond mine owner Eli Snedeker, resentful that his ex-foreman John Gamble stopped him from t
You Live and Learn
1937-09-01
American chorus-girl Mamie Wallace (Farrell) travels to Paris with a ramshackle touring musical revu
Confessions of a Nazi Spy
1939-05-06
FBI agent Ed Renard investigates the pre-War espionage activities of the German-American Bund.
We Are Not Alone
1939-11-25
A British doctor and his son's Austrian governess have an affair and are accused of killing his wife
Heart of the North
1938-12-10
A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound fre
Torchy Blane in Chinatown
1939-02-02
Torchy Blane joins her police-detective fiance to solve a series of murders involving a set of Chine
A Dispatch from Reuters
1940-10-19
German Julius Reuter sends 19th-century news by carrier pigeon and then by wire, founding a news age
Transatlantic Trouble
1937-01-01
Max Miller plays a boxer's manager who fails to get fights for his simple-minded boxer. The manager
The Dark Stairway
1938-01-01
“Professional jealousy over the discovery of a formula for an anaesthetic leads to murder in a hospi
The Man Who Made Diamonds
1937-12-06
“Professor Calthrop, actuated only by scientific motives, and his assistant, out for his own gain, h
International Squadron
1941-08-13
The true story of the exploits of the RAF's (Royal Air Force) foreign legion battling the German Luf
Mr. Satan
1938-02-01