James Robertson Justice

Infobox actor
name = James Robertson Justice


imagesize = 150px
birthname = James Norval Harald Justice
birthdate = birth date|1907|6|15
birthplace = Lee, London, England
deathdate = death date and age|1975|7|2|1907|6|15
deathplace = Romsey, Hampshire, England
restingplace = Scotland
othername = Seamus Mor na Feaseg
James R. Justice
James Robertson
James Robertson-Justice
occupation = Actor
yearsactive = 1944 - 1970
children = James Norval (1945 - 1949)
spouse = Irene von Meyendorff (1975–His Death)
Dilys Ethel Hayden (1941–1968)

James Robertson Justice (15 June 1907 [GRO Register of Births: SEP 1907 1d 1112 LEWISHAM - James Norval H Justice] - 2 July 1975 [GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1975 20 0869 ROMSEY, James Harold N. R. Justice, DoB = 15 June 1907] ) was a popular Anglo-Scottish character actor in British films of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Biography

The son of an Aberdeen-born geologist who was named after his father, James Justice was born in Lee, a suburb of Lewisham in South London, in 1907. Educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, Justice studied science at University College, London, but left after a year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn, where he again left after just a year. He spoke many languages (possibly up to 20) including French, Greek, Danish, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch, and Gaelic.Sheridan Morley, "Justice, James Norval Harald Robertson (1907–1975)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/49503, accessed 12 Nov 2007] ]

After university

Justice returned to the UK in 1927, and became a journalist with Reuters in London, alongside the later "James Bond" writer Ian Fleming. After a year he emigrated to Canada, serving as an insurance salesman, taught English at a boys' school, became a lumberjack and mined for gold. He came back to England penniless, working his passage on a Dutch Freighter.

On return to Britain he served as secretary of the British Ice Hockey Association in the early 1930s and managed the national team at the 1932 European Championships in Berlin to a seventh place finish. He combined his administrative duties in 1931–32 with a season as goaltender with the London Lions. [ [http://www.azhockey.com/Ju.htm#James%20Robertson%20Justice A to Z Encyclopaedia of Ice Hockey entry] . Retrieved November 1, 2007.]

After a single trial as a racing driver at Brooklands, he left Britain again to become a policeman for the League of Nations in the Saarland area of Germany. After the Nazis came to power, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. On return to Britain, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, but after sustaining an injury in 1943 (thought to be shrapnel from a German shell), he was pensioned off.

Love of Scotland

He married nurse Dilys Hayden in Chelsea in 1941, who gave birth to his son James. On his return from the war he reinvented himself with more Scottish roots. Feeling strongly about his Scottish ancestry, he claimed his birth place as under a distillery on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, in 1905. [Citation | last = Pendriegh | first = Brian | title = 'Scots' actor Justice outed as Londoner | newspaper = Scotland on Sunday | date = 18 November 2007 | year = 2007 | url = http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1819412007 ] He unsuccessfully contested the North Angus and Mearns (UK Parliament constituency) for the Labour Party in the 1950 general election.

Acting career

Justice took up acting after joining the Players' Club in London. The club, under the chairmanship of Leonard Sachs who latterly created BBC's television's "The Good Old Days," would stage Victorian music hall nights. Standing in for Sachs one night, he was recommended for the film "For Those In Peril" in the summer of 1944.

As an actor, with his domineering personality, bulky physique, and rich, booming voice, he soon established himself as a major supporting player in British comedy films. His first leading role was as headmaster in the film "Vice Versa," written and directed by Peter Ustinov, who cast him partly because he'd been "a collaborator of my father's at Reuters." Justice came to his fore in the "Doctor" series of the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with "Doctor in the House" in 1954 playing the demanding Sir Lancelot Spratt. In his films he was sometimes credited as "Seamus Mòr na Feusag" (Scottish Gaelic, translation: Big James with the Beard), "James R. Justice", "James Robertson" or "James Robertson-Justice". [imdb name|id=0433150|name= James Robertson Justice]

On 31 August 1957, James helped launch the TV station Scottish Television, hosting the channel's first show, "This is Scotland".fact|date=November 2007 From 1957 to 1960, and again from 1963 to 1966, he was Rector of the University of Edinburgh. [cite web| author = | title = Full list of Rectors to date | url = http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/faqs/parqsutz.shtml#Rec1 | year = | accessdate = 2007-11-01 | publisher = The University of Edinburgh Information Services ]

Later life

After a series of affairs and the drowning of his son in 1949 at his watermill home in Hampshire, Justice separated from his wife; she eventually divorced him in 1968. He met actress Irina von Meyendorff on the set of The Ambassadress in 1960 and they remained together until his death. He suffered a series of strokes in his later life, which left him unable to work, and he died penniless in 1975.

A biography called "James Robertson Justice — What's The Bleeding-Time?" (named after a joke in the first Doctor film) was published by Tomahawk Press on 3 March 2008.(ISBN 0953192679). It was written by James Hogg and Robert Sellers.

Filmography

* "For Those in Peril" (1944) (first screen appearance)
* "Fiddlers Three" (1944)
* "Champagne Charlie" (1944)
* "Appointment with Crime" (1946)
* "Hungry Hill" (1947)
* "Vice Versa" (1947)
* "My Brother Johnathan" (1948)
* "Against the Wind" (1948)
* "Quartet" (1948)
* "Scott of the Antarctic" (1948)
* "Stop Press Girl" (1949)
* "Poet's Pub" (1949)
* "Private Angelo" (1949)
* "Christopher Columbus" (1949)
* "Whisky Galore!" (1949)
* "Prelude to Fame" (1950)
* "My Daughter Joy" (1950)
* "The Black Rose" (1950)
* "The Magnet" (1950)
* "Blackmailed" (1951)
* "Pool of London" (1951)
* "Captain Horatio Hornblower" (1951)
* "David and Bathsheba" (1951)
* "Anne of the Indies" (1951)
* "The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men" (1952)
* "Les Misérables" (1952)
* "Miss Robin Hood" (1952)
* "The Lady Says No" (1952)
* "The Voice of Merill" (1952)
* "The Sword and the Rose" (1953)
* "Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue" (1954)
* "Doctor in the House" (1954)
* "Land of the Pharaohs" (1955)
* "Storm Over the Nile" (1955)
* "Out of the Clouds" (1955)
* "Doctor at Sea" (1955)
* "Above Us the Waves" (1955)
* "An Alligator Named Daisy" (1955)
* "The Iron Petticoat" (1956)
* "Checkpoint" (1956)
* "Moby Dick" (1956)
* "Doctor at Large" (1957)
* "Souvenir d'Italie" (1957)
* "Campbell's Kingdom" (1957)
* "The Living Idol" (1957)
* "Seven Thunders" (1957)
* "Thérèse Étienne" (1958)
* "Orders to Kill" (1958)
* "Upstairs and Downstairs" (1959)
* "Botschafterin, Die" (1960)
* "Foxhole in Cairo" (1960)
* "Doctor in Love" (1960)
* "A French Mistress" (1960)
* "Raising the Wind" (1961)
* "Murder, She Said" (1961)
* "Very Important Person" (1961)
* "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) (also narrated)
* "The Fast Lady" (1962)
* "Crooks Anonymous" (1962)
* "Dr. Crippen" (1962)
* "A Pair of Briefs" (1962)
* "Guns of Darkness" (1962)
* "Repos du guerrier, Le" (1962)
* "Doctor in Distress" (1963)
* "Feuerschiff, Das" (1963)
* "Mystery Submarine" (1963)
* "Father Came Too!" (1964)
* "Up from the Beach" (1965)
* "The Face of Fu Manchu" (1965)
* "You Must be Joking!" (1965)
* "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (1965) (narrator)
* "Doctor in Clover" (1966)
* "Lange Beine - lange Finger" (1966)
* "The Trygon Factor" (1966)
* "À coeur joie" (1967)
* "Histoires extraordinaires" (1968)
* "Mayerling" (1968)
* "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968)
* "Zeta One" (1969)
* "Hell Is Empty" (1969)
* "Doctor in Trouble" (1970) (cameo appearance)
* "Some Will, Some Won't" (1970)
* "The Massacre of Glencoe" (1971)

References

External links

*imdb|0433150
* [http://www.britmovie.co.uk/actors/j/004.html Britmovie - James Robertson Justice]
* [http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/people/famousfirst170.html Gazetteer for Scotland James Robertson Justice]
* [http://jamesrobertsonjustice.moonfruit.com James Robertson Justice Website]

Persondata
NAME = Robertson, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Seamus Mor na Feaseg
James R. Justice
James Robertson
James Robertson-Justice
SHORT DESCRIPTION =
DATE OF BIRTH = June 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH = Lewisham, London, England
DATE OF DEATH = July 2 1975
PLACE OF DEATH = Romsey, Hampshire, England