
James Flavin
Born: 1906-05-14
Place of Birth: Portland, Maine, USA
Biography
American character actor whose career lasted nearly half a century. James Wilson Flavin Jr. was the son of a hotel waiter of Canadian-English extraction and a mother, Katherine, whose father was an Irish immigrant. (Thus Flavin, well-known in Hollywood as an "Irish" type, was only one-quarter Irish.) Flavin was born and raised in Portland, Maine (a fact that may have enrichened his later working relationship with director John Ford, also a Portland native). He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, but (contrary to some sources) did not graduate. Instead he dropped out and returned to Portland where he drove a taxi. Then as now, summer stock companies flocked to Maine each year, and in 1929 he was asked to fill in for an actor. He did well with the part and the company manager offered him $150 per week to go with the troupe back to New York. Flavin accepted and by the spring of 1930 was living in a rooming house at 108 W. 87th Street in Manhattan. Flavin didn't manage to crack Broadway at this time (his Broadway debut would not occur for another thirty-nine years, in the 1971 revival of "The Front Page," in which Flavin played Murphy and briefly took over the lead role of Walter Burns from star Robert Ryan). He worked his way across the country in stock productions and tours, arriving in Los Angeles around 1932. He quickly made the transition to movies, landing the lead in his very first film, a Universal serial, The Airmail Mystery (1932). He also landed his leading lady, marrying the serial's female star Lucile Browne that same year. However, the serial marked virtually the last time that Flavin would play the lead in a film. Thereafter, he was restricted almost exclusively to supporting characters, many of them without so much as a name. He specialized in uniformed cops and hard-bitten detectives, but played chauffeurs, cabbies, and even a 16th-century palace guard with aplomb. Flavin appeared in nearly four hundred films between 1932 and 1971, and in almost a hundred television episodes before his final appearance, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976). Flavin died of a heart ailment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on April 23, 1976. His widow Lucile died seventeen days later. They were survived by their son, William James Flavin, subsequently a professor at the United States Army War College. James and Lucile Brown Flavin were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
Known For

Riot Squad

Cheyenne Autumn

Mildred Pierce

Christmas Holiday

Air Force

Brother Orchid

Nightmare Alley

Western Union

Mister Roberts

Belle Starr

Rendezvous

Destination Murder

Johnny Angel

Chinatown Squad

Irish Luck

King Kong

Hot Water

Miracle Money

Sailor Beware

Broadway

Dishonored Lady

Desert Fury

Unconquered

Beloved

Buck Privates

Special Agent

Hollywood Canteen

Woman Wanted

Bungalow 13

Texas

'G' Men

Blondie

Flamingo Road

Jesse James

Dangerously Yours

Riding High

Shockproof

Start Cheering

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Night Spot

Dragonfly Squadron

Manhattan Heartbeat

Oh! Susanna

Double Alibi

Four Mothers

Back Street

Okay, America!

Mannequin

Florian

Uncertain Glory

Carrie

Wild Gold

Only Yesterday

Affectionately Yours

Manpower

Live, Love and Learn

Test Pilot

Nora Prentiss

Mississippi Rhythm

The Murder Man

Rendezvous with Annie

I Dood It

So Proudly We Hail

You Can't Take It with You

The Grapes of Wrath

Laura

Kathleen

The Naked Street

Hello, Sister!

Song of the Thin Man

My Girl Tisa

Hold That Blonde!

The Long Voyage Home

The Plunderers

I Beheld His Glory

New York Town

Hot Steel

Mighty Joe Young

Ziegfeld Girl

Angel on My Shoulder

Confidentially Connie

Night in New Orleans

Rose of Washington Square

In Cold Blood

My Man Godfrey

Heaven Can Wait

Abroad with Two Yanks

The Roaring Twenties

Fighting Coast Guard

It Happened on Fifth Avenue

Prison Warden

O. Henry's Full House

Star of Texas

Saboteur

The Strawberry Blonde

The Brand of Hate

Easy to Wed

Reap the Wild Wind

Anchors Aweigh

Captain Hurricane

The Most Dangerous Game

Girls Can Play

Boys' Ranch

Return of the Dead

I Am the Law

Straight from the Heart

Wild Is the Wind

Action in the North Atlantic

Cloak and Dagger

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Ride on Vaquero

The Last Hurrah

Follow the Sun

They Met in a Taxi

Armored Car Robbery

Never Say Goodbye

Rock Island Trail

Night Passage

The Devil's Pipeline

One Way Ticket

Sleep, My Love

The Ghost Breakers

Secret Service Investigator

Alexander's Ragtime Band

The Airmail Mystery

Million Dollar Mermaid

Union Pacific

Step by Step

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars

Operation Pacific

Pot o' Gold

Pot o' Gold

McKenna of the Mounted

My Favorite Brunette

I Wake Up Screaming

Gentleman Jim

Here Come the Marines

Too Hot to Handle

A Stolen Life

The Missing Lady

The Devil's Henchmen

The Velvet Touch

Man on the Flying Trapeze

Girl in 313

La Conga Nights

While New York Sleeps

You Only Live Once

Critic's Choice

Once Upon a Time

The Savage Horde

One Touch of Venus

Each Dawn I Die

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff

Trouble Along the Way

Wives Under Suspicion

South Sea Sinner

Fast and Furious

Big Town Girl

The Restless Breed

Law and Order

The Noose Hangs High

The Affairs of Cellini

The Night of January 16th

When Tomorrow Comes

Remember the Night

Mr. Wong in Chinatown

Tough as They Come

Knute Rockne All American

Code of the Streets

The Great Profile

When Willie Comes Marching Home

Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President

The Fighting 69th

God Is My Co-Pilot

It All Came True

Good Times

Hold Back the Dawn

Massacre Canyon

Three Loves Has Nancy

North West Mounted Police

I Promise to Pay

Over 21

And One Was Beautiful

Ride 'Em Cowboy

Ten Gentlemen from West Point

Tin Pan Alley

Robin Hood Of Texas

They All Come Out

Hot News

The Wild Man of Borneo

The Shanghai Cobra

They Shall Have Music

Lucky Cisco Kid

When the Daltons Rode

Corvette K-225

Mission to Moscow

Thank Your Lucky Stars

Tell No Tales

Rhubarb

Swing Shift Maisie

Circumstantial Evidence

The Further Adventures of Gallegher

Big Town Czar

My Dear Miss Aldrich

Apache Ambush

The All-American

Gateway

Come Fill the Cup

Blondie Hits the Jackpot

Nobody Lives Forever

Sergeant Madden

Johnny Apollo

Sentimental Journey

It Ain't Hay

Footsteps in the Night

Public Hero Number 1

According to Mrs. Hoyle

Homicide

Broadway Melody of 1940

Queen of the Mob

The Cisco Kid and the Lady

Hold That Hypnotist

Midnight Taxi

Dangerous Number

Kid Glove Killer

Dakota Lil

Baby Take a Bow

Shipmates Forever

Something to Shout About

We Go Fast

Everybody's Doing It

Strange Affair

Murder on the Waterfront

The Way of All Flesh

The Spider

Young Widow

Joe Palooka in the Knockout

The Golden Fleecing

The Luckiest Girl in the World

The Lost Spider Pit Sequence

Life Begins at Eight-Thirty

Johnny Rocco

Fingers at the Window

The Ice Follies of 1939

Murder, He Says

Charlie Chan at the Race Track

Women Without Names

Tars and Spars

Convicts at Large

Francis in the Haunted House

Castle on the Hudson

Fighter Attack

Rhythm on the River

A Yank on the Burma Road

Everybody's Baby

Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident

Bedtime Story

Lightning Carson Rides Again

The Gracie Allen Murder Case

Secrets of Chinatown

How to Behave

Thru Different Eyes

The Eddie Cantor Story

Angel's Holiday

Mickey the Kid

Youth Will Be Served

Private Affairs

Born to Be Wild

The Duke of West Point

South of Pago Pago

The Daring Young Man

Ship of Wanted Men
