James became well known for playing the comic-relief role of Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the James Bond films Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).[4] He played very similar characters in both Silver Streak (1976) and Superman II (1980). Years earlier he portrayed a serious character in The Reivers (1969),[5] opposite Steve McQueen, playing a mean, corrupt country sheriff. Two years earlier he had portrayed a hard-nosed Southern prison floor-walker in Cool Hand Luke (1967). In Juggernaut (1974) he portrayed one of the first passengers aboard a luxury liner to realize there was a serious problem with the ship.
Despite being born in the Northwest and spending much of his life in New York (where he was an Actors Studio member of long standing),[6] James was cast as a Southerner in many of his screen roles, such as his appearances in the James Bond films, and as powerful Houston lawyer Striker Bellman in the daytime soap opera Texas from 1981 to 1982.
In 1965, he played “Sam Hare”, a slimy, blackmailing salesman on the TV Western Gunsmoke in the episode “The Lady” (S10E27). He guest-starred again as Tenner Jackson, a successful poker player later killed for his winnings in the episode “The Wrong Man” - alongside Carroll O’Connor (S12E7). Later, he played the train passenger Wilkes on the Gunsmoke episode "Snow Train" (1970).
James again portrayed a Southern character when he played Sheriff Lester Crabb, a temporary one-off replacement for regular Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) in the second-season Dukes of Hazzard episode "Treasure of Hazzard" (1980). He appeared on 13 episodes of the sitcom Lewis & Clark in 1981–1982. Other television credits include the 1976 private-eye drama City of Angels and the miniseries Captains and the Kings (1976). He appeared in two episodes of The A-Team: as murderous prison warden Beale in the first-season episode "Pros and Cons" (1983) and as corrupt Sheriff Jake Dawson in the second season's "The White Ballot" (1983). In 1996, he played the role of Red Kilgreen on All My Children. James appeared in the 1979 pilot episode of Hart to Hart playing the part of a highway cop.
His other film roles include those of a wealthy Montana land baron whose cattle are being rustled in Rancho Deluxe (1975) and as the source who tips off a newspaperman to a potentially explosive story in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). James was featured a number of times by writer-director John Sayles, including Eight Men Out (1988), Lone Star (1996) and Sunshine State (2002).
James' last known film appearance was in Raising Flagg (2006), although he had been cast in a starring role to appear in the feature film Old Soldiers, playing a true-to-life elderly veteran of World War II.[7] Production on that film was halted in 2016.
Personal life
James married twice: to Donna Lea Beach from 1948 to 1950, with whom he had one child, and to Laurie Harper, from 1951 until her death in 2015, with whom he had five children. He resided in Gladstone, Oregon, and died from complications of diabetes on April 15, 2017, aged 96.[8]
