Oscar Profile #80: James Mason

Born May 15, 1909, James Mason was a great character actor who was also a major star for most of his fifty year acting career. Although praised for almost all his performances, he was rarely singled out for acting awards. Perhaps it was because he was so good that he was taken for granted for so much of his work.

Mason abandoned his planned career as an architect once bitten by the acting bug in college. In films from 1935, he was outstanding in Hatter’s Castle; Thunder Rock and The Man in Grey, but it wasn’t until 1945’s The Seventh Veil that he became an international star as Ann Todd’s controlling guardian. Even greater success came with his portrayal of the wounded IRA leader in 1947’s Odd Man Out ; the good doctor in 1949’s Caught; Field Marshal Rommel in 1951’s The Desert Fox and 1953’s The Desert Rats; the valet turned spy in 1952’s 5 Fingers and Brutus in Julius Caesar. He won the National Board of Review Award as Best Actor of 1953 for Julius Caesar and The Desert Rats as well as two other films, Face to Face and The Man Between.

Two high profile roles in 1954, Norman Maine, the director on the decline in A Star Is Born opposite Judy Garland, and Captain Nemo in Dsiney’s film of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, found him at the apex of his fame. He received both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for A Star Is Born.

Mason won further acclaim for his portrayal of the schoolteacher who becomes addicted to cortisone in 1956’s Bigger Than Life and had two of his best roles in 1959 as the suave killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and as the explorer who takes a Journey to the Center of the Earth in another film version of a Jules Verne classic.

He received his second Golden Globe nomination as Humbert Humbert in 1962’s Lolita for which he also received a BAFTA nomination. Although there was talk of a possible Oscar nomination for his Timonides in 1964’s The Fall of the Roman Empire, it failed to materialize. He did, however, receive his second Oscar nomination for his lonely, aging millionaire in 966’s Georgy Girl.

Memorable as a character based on John Le Carré’s George Smiley in 1967’s The Deadly Affair for which he received his second BAFTA nomination, he was first runner-up to Laurence Oliver in Sleuth in the 1972 voting of the New York Film Critics Award for his misunderstood professor in Child’s Play.

Runner-up in the 1979 National Society of Film Critics’ voting for Best Supporting Actor as Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes film, Murder by Decree, he received his third Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his corrupt defense attorney in 1982’s The Verdict. He received a posthumous BAFTA nomination for his fading British aristocrat in 1985’s The Shooting Party.
Mason’s volatile marriage to his first wife, Pamela, ended in acrimony in 1964 with Pamela reportedly taking him for all he was worth at the time. His second wife, Australian born actress Clarissa Kaye, twenty-two years his junior, outlived him by ten years.

Shortly before his death of a heart attack on July 27, 1984, Mason changed his will, leaving his money to Clarissa instead of his children Morgan and Portland with the understanding that Clarissa would leave the money to the children. Instead, she left it to a blind trust, reportedly an ashram in India. She also refused to bury or scatter his ashes, instead leaving them in a bank vault in Switzerland. Six years after her death, sixteen after Mason’s, the children successfully had the ashes released and buried near Mason’s friend Charlie Chaplin.

Mason, who was 75 at the time of his death, left behind four unreleased projects, a TV mini-series and two TV movies as well as the theatrically released The Shooting Party.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ODD MAN OUT (1947), directed by Carol Reed

Along with Reed’s better known The Third Man, this suspense classic has long been hailed as one of the two best British films of the post-war years.

Mason had one of his signature roles as Johnny McQueen, the Irish Republican Army leader, who is wounded in a failed robbery attempt in Belfast and goes on the run, meeting various colorful characters along the way. Kathleen Ryan is outstanding as the girl who helps him.

A STAR IS BORN (1954), directed by George Cukor

Mason’s character in the musical remake of the 1937 classic is changed from an actor to a director, but the trajectory is the same. As his wife’s career ascends, his descends, slowly at first, then more rapidly as his drinking increases.

Although hailed as Judy Garland’s screen acting pinnacle, and rightly so, only a strong actor of Mason’s caliber could have kept pace with her and make as remarkable an impact as he does.

BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956), directed by Nicholas Ray

Critically praised in its day, but not a box-office hit, this film about the addictive nature of modern drugs has gained in reputation over the years.

Mason’s character undergoes a metamorphosis from beloved husband and father and nice-guy schoolteacher to raving lunatic as becomes more and more dependent on cortisone to ease his pain.

Barbara Rush has one of her best roles as his concerned wife.

THE DEADLY AFFAIR (1967), directed by Sidney Lumet

Because Paramount, which had produced 1965’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, they held the rights to characters in the John Le Carré novel, including George Smiley, played by Rupert Davies in that film.

Mason’s character’s name is consequently changed to Charles Dobbs, but his performance is easily the match of Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman in later Le Carré adaptations.

Simone Signoret, Maximilian Schell and Harriet Andersson as Smiley/Dobbs’ nymphomaniac wife, Ann, co-star.

THE SHOOTING PARTY (1985), directed by Alan Bridges

Mason’s last theatrically released film is a somber look at the crumbling British aristocracy in 1913 on the eve of the Great War, albeit one with great dollops of wry British humor. Highly reminiscent of Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, about the French aristocracy on the eve of World War II, the film boasts memorable performances by John Gielgud, Rupert Fraser and Gordon Jackson as well as Mason.
The highlight of the film is the verbal tête-à-tête between weary landowner Mason and Animal Rights crusader Gielgud. Although the two actors both had roles in 1979’s Murder by Decree, this was the first time they acted together since 1953’s Julius Caesar and they’re both superb. Too bad they didn’t get the chance to act together again.