Occupation Television actor | Name Brian James | |
Born 5 July 1918 Victoria, Australia Died November 2, 2009(2009-11-02) (aged 91)
Melbourne, Australia | ||
Brian James (5 July 1918 – 2 November 2009) was an Australian radio, stage, television and film actor, He was born in Victoria.
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Early career
James did much stage work, including the 1952 J.C Williamson production of "Seagulls Over Sorrento". He would also appear in the 1960 TV production of the play.
He also appeared in ABC radio plays.
Television
James appeared in several ABC drama plays in the late 1950s, including "Duke In Darkness" and "Killer in Close-Up: The Wallace Case" in 1957, "Gaslight", "The Small Victory", "The Public Prosecutor", and "The Governess" (all 1958), "Crime Passionel", "Treason", and "The House By The Stable" (1959). He had the lead role as Dr Geoffrey Thompson in the early medical drama Emergency (1959). He also appeared in commercial dramas "Shadow of a Pale Horse" and "Seagulls Over Sorrento" in 1960, along with ABC dramas "Heart Attack", "Eye of the Night", and "Mine Own Executioner", and was awarded the TV Week Logie award for "Best Actor" for the plum role of Governor William Bligh in the 1960 ABC drama serial "Stormy Petrel" (a role which he reprised in a 1974 episode of the anthology series "Behind The Legend").
Other ABC drama play appearances included "The Ides Of March" (1961), "The Physicists", "Luther", and "The Wind From The Icy Country" (all 1964).
In 1962, he took the lead role of Jonah Locke in the ATN-7 drama series "Jonah".
In 1964, James appeared as a presenter on This Is It!, the opening night program for ATV-0 in Melbourne.
He also featured as Ian Bennett in Bellbird. He appeared as George Tippett in the soap opera Skyways (1979–81) – a character he continued in the ill-fated series Holiday Island in 1981.
He is probably best known to international audiences for his part in the cult soap opera Prisoner (aka Cell Block H) as the friendly officer and later prison handyman Stan Dobson, having previously appeared in the series briefly as Dr. Kennedy. He also appeared as John Worthington in Neighbours in the late 1980s.
Film
On film, he made an uncredited appearance as a naval officer in the 1959 Stanley Kramer film On the Beach. He also played screen father to Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark, the 1988 movie about the Lindy Chamberlain court case.
Death
He died in The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, of complications following a fall in 2009 aged 91.