James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was nominated for three Academy Awards, three Golden Globes and two BAFTA Awards throughout his career.
Mason began his career as a stage actor on the West End, before transitioning into leading man roles in films during the early 1940s. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films included The Seventh Veil and The Wicked Lady. He starred in Odd Man Out, the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.
Moving to the United States in the following decade, Mason starred in such films as George Cukor's A Star Is Born - earning a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict.
He also starred in a number of successful British and American films from the 1950s to the early 1980s, including: The Desert Fox, Julius Caesar, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Bigger Than Life, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Georgy Girl, Spring and Port Wine, and The Boys from Brazil. Following his death in 1984, his ashes were interred near the tomb of his close friend, fellow English actor Sir Charlie Chaplin.
Early life, family and education
Mason was born on 15 May 1909 in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of three sons of John Mason and Mabel Hattersley, daughter of Joseph Shaw Gaunt. A wealthy wool merchant like his father, John Mason travelled often on business, mainly in France and Belgium. Mabel—who was "uncommonly well-educated" and had lived in London to study and begin work as an artist before returning to Yorkshire to care for her father—was "attentive and loving" in raising her sons.The Masons lived in a house in its own grounds on Croft House Lane in Marsh. It was replaced in the mid-1970s by flats called Arncliffe Court. A small residential development opposite where the house once stood is now called James Mason Court.
Mason was educated at Marlborough College and took a first in architecture at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he became involved in stock theatre companies in his spare time. He had no formal acting training, and initially embarked upon it for fun.
Career
1931–1939: Early roles
After Cambridge, Mason made his stage debut in Aldershot in The Rascal in 1931. He joined the Old Vic theatre in London under the guidance of Tyrone Guthrie. While there he appeared in productions of The Cherry Orchard, Henry VIII, Measure for Measure, The Importance of Being Earnest, Love for Love, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth. Featuring in many of these were Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. In the mid-1930s he also appeared at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, notably in Pride and Prejudice with Betty Chancellor. In 1933, Alexander Korda gave Mason a small role in The Private Life of Don Juan but sacked him three days into shooting.From 1935 to 1938, Mason starred in many British quota quickies, starting with his first film Late Extra, in which he played the lead. Albert Parker directed. Mason appeared in Twice Branded ; Troubled Waters, also directed by Parker; Prison Breaker ; Blind Man's Bluff, for Parker's The Secret of Stamboul, and The Mill on the Floss, an "A" movie. Mason had a key support role in Korda's Fire Over England with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. He was in another "A", The High Command directed by Thorold Dickinson, then went back to quickies, starring in Catch As Catch Can, directed by Roy Kellino. Korda cast him as the villain in The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel
Mason began appearing in some televised productions of plays, made in the very early days of television: Cyrano de Bergerac, The Moon in the Yellow River, Bees on the Boat-Deck, Square Pegs, L'Avare, and The Circle. He returned to features with I Met a Murderer based on a story by Mason and Pamela Kellino, who also starred with Mason and whom he would marry. Her husband Roy Kellino directed.
1941–1957: Leading man status
Second World WarMason registered as a conscientious objector during World War II, but his tribunal did not exempt him on the requirement for non-combatant military service, which he also refused. He appealed against that aspect of the tribunal's decision, but it became irrelevant once he was included in a general exemption for film work. In 1941–42 he returned to the stage to appear in Jupiter Laughs by A. J. Cronin. He established himself as a leading man in Britain in a series of films: The Patient Vanishes ; Hatter's Castle with Robert Newton and Deborah Kerr; The Night Has Eyes ; Alibi with Margaret Lockwood; Secret Mission ; Thunder Rock with Michael Redgrave; and The Bells Go Down with Tommy Trinder.
Mason became hugely popular for his brooding anti-heroes, and occasional outright villains, in the Gainsborough series of melodramas of the 1940s, starting with The Man in Grey. The film was a huge hit and made him and co-stars Lockwood, Stewart Granger and Phyllis Calvert top-level stars. Mason starred in two wartime dramas, They Met in the Dark and Candlelight in Algeria, then returned to Gainsborough melodrama with Fanny By Gaslight with Granger and Calvert; it was another big hit. He starred in Hotel Reserve, a thriller, then did a ghost story for Gainsborough with Lockwood, A Place of One's Own. Far more popular was a melodrama, They Were Sisters.
Sydney Box cast Mason in a psychodrama about musicians, The Seventh Veil, as the tyrannical guardian of pianist Ann Todd. It was a huge success in Britain and the US and demand for Mason was at a fever pitch. Exhibitors voted him the most popular star in Britain in each year between 1944 and 1947. They also declared him the most popular international star in 1946; he dropped to second place the following year. He was the most popular male star in Canada in 1948.
Mason had a relatively minor role in The Wicked Lady with Lockwood, a big hit. He then received his best reviews to date playing a mortally wounded IRA bank robber on the run in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. He turned producer with Sydney Box on The Upturned Glass, which starred Mason with a script by Mason's wife. It was not particularly successful. Neither was Bathsheba, a play the Masons did on Broadway. Mason went to Hollywood for his first film, Caught, directed by Max Ophüls, then played Gustave Flaubert in MGM's Madame Bovary. He did another with Ophüls, The Reckless Moment, and followed it with East Side, West Side with Barbara Stanwyck at MGM and One Way Street at Universal. He made Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with Ava Gardner. None of these films were particularly successful.
File:Garland Star Born recrop.jpg|thumb|170px|Mason acted alongside Judy Garland in A Star is Born
Films at 20th Century Fox
Mason's Hollywood career was revived when he was cast as General Rommel in The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, directed by Henry Hathaway. To do the film he agreed to sign a contract with 20th Century Fox for seven years at one film a year. Mason did a film at Republic Pictures written by his wife and directed by Roy Kellino, Lady Possessed. At Fox, he played a spy in 5 Fingers, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. MGM hired him to play Rupert of Hentzau in The Prisoner of Zenda opposite Granger. He was in the lower budgeted Face to Face then went to Paramount to play a villainous sea captain opposite Alan Ladd in Botany Bay.
Mason was one of many stars in MGM's The Story of Three Loves. At Fox, he reprised his role as Rommel in The Desert Rats, then he was reunited with Mankiewicz at MGM, playing Brutus in Julius Caesar, opposite Marlon Brando. The film was very successful. Mason worked with Carol Reed in The Man Between, then Fox used him as a villain again in Prince Valiant. Mason did another film with a screenplay by his wife and directed by Roy Kellino, Charade.
Warner Bros. Pictures hired him to play fading screen actor and Judy Garland's leading man Norman Maine in the George Cukor-directed musical drama film A Star Is Born. He took the role after Cary Grant turned it down. Mason won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Jack Moffitt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film writing, "A Star Is Born is the perfect blend of drama and musical — of cinematic art and popular entertainment."
He went over to Disney to play Captain Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a huge hit which also starred Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre. During 1954 and 1955, Mason was the host of several episodes of Lux Video Theatre on CBS television. Mason appeared with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the fantasy romantic comedy Forever, Darling and then starred in and produced a film at Fox, Bigger Than Life, directed by Nicholas Ray. Mason played a small-town school teacher driven insane by the effects of cortisone. He did another for Fox, the hugely popular melodrama Island in the Sun.
1958–1970: Established actor
Mason began appearing regularly on television in shows such as Panic!, General Electric Theater, Schlitz Playhouse, Goodyear Theatre and Playhouse 90. He starred in two thrillers for Andrew L. Stone, Cry Terror! and The Decks Ran Red, then played a suave master spy hunting down Cary Grant with romantic assistance from Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.In 1959, he had a huge hit returning to Jules Verne as the determined Scottish scientist and explorer Sir Oliver Lindenbrook in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, taking over the role meant for Clifton Webb. He did a comedy, A Touch of Larceny, and portrayed Sir Edward Carson in The Trials of Oscar Wilde. He continued to appear on TV shows like The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Golden Showcase, Theatre '62 and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
He played a happily-married college professor asked to father a child by a Swedish visitor in The Marriage-Go-Round, then played Lolita's sexually obsessive stepfather Humbert Humbert in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, receiving BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. He starred in Tiara Tahiti and Hero's Island, which he also produced. He starred as an Italian submarine captain in Torpedo Bay.
In 1963, Mason settled in Switzerland and embarked on a transatlantic career. He began to drift into supporting roles: Timonides in the epic The Fall of the Roman Empire, a cuckold in The Pumpkin Eater with Anne Bancroft, a river pirate who betrays Peter O'Toole's character in Lord Jim, a Chinese noble in Genghis Khan, a man in a love triangle in The Uninhibited, a guest role on Dr. Kildare, and an older employer pursuing his employee's virginal young daughter in the Swinging London-set Georgy Girl, a role that earned him a second Academy Award nomination.
In 1967, Mason narrated the documentary The London Nobody Knows. An ardent cinephile on top of his career interests, Mason narrated two British documentary series supervised by Kevin Brownlow: Hollywood, on the silent cinema and Unknown Chaplin, devoted to out-take material from the films of Sir Charlie Chaplin. Mason had been a long-time neighbor and friend of the actor and director Charlie Chaplin. In the late 1970s, Mason became a mentor to up-and-coming actor Sam Neill.
He was in several episodes of ITV Play of the Week and he had the lead in The Deadly Affair for Sidney Lumet ; and Stranger in the House. He provided a supporting role in Duffy, The Blue Max and Mayerling but was top billed in The Sea Gull for Sidney Lumet and starred as Bradley Morahan in Age of Consent for Michael Powell, a film which Mason also produced. The movie featured Helen Mirren's first major film role, and was Powell's last major film. It was also through this film that Mason met his second wife, Clarissa Kaye. Mason also had the star role in Spring and Port Wine.