Sidney James - Biography - IMDb Sidney James Biography Showing all 54 items Jump to: Overview (5) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (3) | Trade Mark (3) | Trivia (24) | Salary (18) Overview (5) 5' 8" (1.73 m) Mini Bio (1) The star of the Carry On series of films, Sid James originally came to prominence as sidekick to the ground breaking British comedy actor Tony Hancock, on both radio and then television. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa and named Solomon Joel Cohen, James arrived in England in 1946, second wife in tow, having served with the South African Army during World War 2. By now an aspiring actor, James claimed to have boxed in his youth, perhaps to explain his craggy features, but was certainly a well respected hairdresser in his native country. Known in the trade as "one take James", he became a very talented and professional actor, constantly in demand for small parts in British post-war cinema.

In 1960 James debuted in the fourth of the Carry On films, taking the lead role in Carry on Constable (1960) and went on to appear in a further 18 Carry On films as well as various stage and television spin-offs. Reputed not to have got on with Carry On co-star Kenneth Williams , the two often played adversaries on-screen, notably in the historical parodies Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968) and Carry on Pimpernel (1967). James however was respected and revered by almost everyone he worked with and contrary to popular myth, a true gentleman. An addiction to gambling played a large part in James' workaholic schedule and subsequent heart attack in 1967. He was soon back in action however, playing a hospital patient in Carry on Doctor (1967), able to spend most of the film in bed. He suffered a second and fatal heart attack on stage in Sunderland, England on April 26 1976, leaving behind 3 children and his third wife Valerie who had stuck by him despite his affair with Carry On co-star Barbara Windsor , saying, "He always came home to me".

- IMDb Mini Biography By: lyndseychris Spouse (3) ( 12 August 1936 - 1940) (divorced) (1 child) Trade Mark (3) The dirtiest laugh in film Playing lecherous comedy characters The adulterous characters he portrayed were inspired by events in his life. Trivia (24) Arrived in Britain on Dec 25th 1946, spending his army demob money on one-way tickets. Once described as "The man with a face like an unmade bed!". Voted (some time ago) to have the world's dirtiest laugh. Career prior to acting was as a top ladies' hairdresser in South Africa. Sid and Meg had a daughter Reine (named after Sid's mother) Frequently remembered as a former boxer, but he never actually was! People got that impression that he had been a boxer from his craggy features and bulbous nose. He is the father of Stephen James, a musician and sound technician who appeared on Fortran 5's debut album "Blues", in October 1991. The song "Bike" heavily sampled Sid's voice and distinctive laugh.

Also, Sidney James' portrait appears on the album cover. Collapsed and died on-stage of a heart attack while appearing in "The Mating Game" at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. Was the regular sidekick-cum-bête noir of Tony Hancock throughout the six series of the radio series "Hancock's Half Hour". Likewise, became Hancock's regular pal in the TV series Hancock's Half Hour (1956), until the final series when Hancock decided it was getting too much like a double act. Sid was nicknamed "One take James" because he nearly always did it right first time. He was also earning the highest daily rate of any British character actor. In late 1960s, he attended a showbusiness houseparty near the Thames and, according to a TV news bulletin, was the hero of the hour because fire broke out and Sid kept dashing back indoors to help others to safety. Apparently, the emergency services had to eventually restrain him from re-entering the fire. Was infamous for using branded products in the Carry On films and advertising them. In one particular film he opened a cupboard to reveal a cupboard full of Johnny Walker Red Label Scotch Whisky.

Had an affair with "Carry On..." series star Barbara Windsor from 1973 until his death in 1976. Their life together is chronicled in the movie Cor, Blimey! (2000). Ms. Windsor is an advisor to the cast. His daughter, Sue James , is a children's TV Producer. Suffered a serious heart attack in 1967, and was therefore replaced by Phil Silvers as the star of Carry on in the Legion (1967). His son, Steve James is a music producer. His best friends were his Carry On co-stars Patsy Rowlands and Peter Butterworth . Was friends with Laurence Harvey until they worked on The Silent Enemy (1958) together. According to the book "A Biography Of Sid James", James was offered the role of Chief Petty Officer Thorpe on the recommendation of Harvey, but their friendship ended during the filming. He found Harvey to be "pompous and full of his own importance". His grandson James Wichall is a Sound Engineer. He received top-billing in 17 of the 19 "Carry On" films in which he appeared.

Frankie Howerd had that honour in Carry on Doctor (1967) and Carry on Up the Jungle (1970). He has two roles in common with Richard Burton : (1) Burton played Mark Antony in Cleopatra (1963) while James played him in Carry on Cleo (1964) and (2) Burton played King Henry VIII of England in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) while James played him in Carry on Henry VIII (1971). In both cases, James wore the costume which had originally been worn by Burton. He died only one day after Carol Reed , who directed him in both A Kid for Two Farthings (1955) and Trapeze (1956). Although he was 61 years when he played Dick Turpin in Carry on Dick (1974), Turpin was only 33 when he was hanged on April 7, 1739. Was unable to appear in Carry on Behind (1975), as he was touring Australia for a theatrical production of The Mating Season.

Was supposed to play Sergeant Ernie Knocker in Carry on in the Legion (1967), but was busy with George and the Dragon (1966). Less than two weeks into the shooting schedule, he suffered a heart attack. The role went to Phil Silvers . Was supposed to play Detective Sergeant Sidney Bung in Carry on Screaming! (1966), but dropped out when he suffered a heart attack. The role went to Harry H. Corbett . Salary (18) Sid James, the crimper who became Carry On’s king | UK | News | Daily Express UK Sid James, the crimper who became Carry On’s king HIS was the most distinctive laugh in the history of British comedy. That unforgettable gravelly cackle embodied all the warmth, lechery and cheekiness which made Sid James so cherished by the British public. No one ever captured the spirit of the classic bawdy seaside postcard better than him.

00:49, Sat, May 4, 2013 Sid James became one of Britain’s best loved comedy actors For three decades in postwar Britain, his lascivious antics and dodgy wheezes brought smiles to the faces of millions, making him one of the country's best-loved, most prolific comic actors. From the phenomenally successful radio show Hancock's Half Hour to the long-running Seventies TV sitcom Bless This House, Sid James was a permanent fixture in British entertainment. His popularity was further enhanced by the Carry On film series, which was the ideal vehicle for his lewd, wise-cracking persona. Though some performers such as Kenneth Williams and Joan Sims appeared in more Carry On films than he did Sid James was the biggest star of the series, his very name synonymous with its ribald humour. This coming week sees the centenary of the birth of Sid James and so it is appropriate to recognise the rare talent that made him into a legend. He was never a comedian in the sense that he could do stand-up routines. Gerald Thomas, the director of the Carry On films, once said: "Sid was hopeless without a script.

Ask him to ad-lib and he would be lost." But James was undoubtedly a unique comic actor with an innate gift for timing, a charismatic screen presence and an ability to inhabit a character. "A magic had been born among the team," recalled his fellow actor Leslie Phillips on James's first Carry On appearance. In fact, the morose alcoholic Tony Hancock forced Sid James out of his own show in 1959 because he feared that the brilliance of James was stealing his limelight. A key ingredient of James's appeal was his apparent authenticity. He was all too believable because he usually seemed to be playing himself. It is telling that, in recognition of this trait, so many of his comic roles were named Sid - like the imperial governor Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond in Carry On Up The Khyber. Certainly there were large elements of his personality that he transposed to the screen, including the rampant libido, the easy charm and the financial unreliability. But in real life Sid James was a much darker, more complex figure than the skirt-chasing rascals and scheming dodgers that he portrayed in films or on television. Deeply insecure, driven by obsessive passions, he was a man who went to self-destructive extremes.

As an actor he was a workaholic perfectionist, demanding complete professionalism in rehearsals and rarely turning down any job, even at the height of his fame. "I don't refuse any part, providing I can do something with it and the lolly's good," he told the Daily Express in 1960. The stress of his workload was one of the reasons he suffered from heart trouble before his premature death, aged 62, in 1976. James had to keep going because he had a chronic gambling habit which gnawed away at his earnings. Throughout his career he wasted a fortune at the bookies, so much so that his third and final wife Valerie had to take charge of his finances and give him an allowance. "Gambling was like breathing to Sid," she once said. His endless troubles with cash fed his epic meanness, an unattractive characteristic that stood in graphic contrast to his jovial image. "He made Scrooge look like a public benefactor," said one of his agents. Even more extreme was his fixation with sex. Having lost his virginity at the age of 17, James revelled in spectacular promiscuity.

Despite his craggy face, which the effete Kenneth Williams said was "terribly battered and very unattractive", he possessed an almost animal sexual magnetism which he exploited to the full, unrestrained by any moral boundaries in his own marriages or those of his targets. Even his own agent's wife was not free from his advances. At one point the Carry On actress Hattie Jacques was so appalled by his behaviour that she gave him a stern lecture, only to be met with the response from James: "God, you're sexy when you're angry." Though at times his seduction technique was based on old-fashioned chivalry there were less edifying aspects to his conduct. Fertile as well as profligate, he fathered several children outside his three marriages but took no responsibility for them. In fact when one of his mistresses told him she was pregnant he "struck her quite brutally", according to James's excellent biographer Cliff Goodwin, who recorded that James also hit his first wife, known as "Toots" after she became pregnant. Sid James with Barbara Windsor When he lost Babs he lost the will to live Sid James's agent Two of his numerous affairs had an even more macabre side.

One, with Eileen Gibson, occurred during his second marriage. When James tried to finish it he found himself subjected to the kind of enraged, possessive jealousy that he occasionally inflicted on others. He was free from her threatening attentions only when in October 1947 she suddenly died aboard a cruise liner while in the throes of passion with the ship's deck steward, who was eventually imprisoned for her murder. During the investigation James was questioned by the police over his relationship with her. "She was a nymphomaniac who refused to let go," he told them. Fortunately his name never came up during the subsequent trial. The other affair, in the Seventies with the Carry On actress Barbara Windsor, was even more damaging. Not only was there some danger in this liaison, since her husband at the time was the notorious criminal Ronnie Knight who allegedly embedded an axe in the floor of James's Buckinghamshire home as a warning against the continuance of the fling, but also James - his health already vulnerable - was left exhausted by the tempest of his all-consuming, paranoid devotion to Barbara. "I'm the eternal dirty old man," James once frankly admitted.

His epic womanising, just like his catchphrase "Cor blimey", was an integral part of his image as a cockney rebel. Yet the supreme irony of Sid James's career was that he was not an Englishman at all, never mind a Londoner. He was actually born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on May 8, 1913. By a coincidental quirk, the birthplace was in a relative's house on Hancock Street. Showbusiness was in his blood. Both his parents were vaudeville comedians, and as an infant Sid occasionally appeared on stage as part of their act. But they also travelled overseas extensively, which meant that young Sid was sively, which meant that young Sid was often left in the care of relatives, something that fed his insecurity and wilfulness as a child. Showing no interest in academic study, he left school at the first opportunity and took on various menial jobs including spells as a docker and a diamond sorter. But then he found a profession that gave him far more satisfaction: as a hairdresser. It might seem bizarre that Sid James, such an archetypal masculine figure, should have enjoyed his first professional success with the curling tongs.

But he had a natural skill for hair styling and was in high demand by the women of Johannesburg. At one stage he had his own salon employing a staff of 30. More importantly, the trade provided him with a rich source of attractive female company, of which he did not hesitate to take full advantage. Despite his tonsorial and erotic success, Sid James was gripped in the late Thirties by profound frustration which led to heavy drinking and bar-room brawling. Indeed, his battered appearance was the result, not of time in the professional boxing ring as he later claimed, but of regular drunken fights. This frustration largely stemmed from his desire to be an actor rather than a hairdresser. But it was the outbreak of war that really gave him the chance to fulfil his ambition, as he became a popular entertainer for the troops in the South African army. Inspired by this experience, he emigrated in 1946 to England where he quickly won recognition for his talent. Within a year of his arrival he appeared in five films, and the offers of work never ceased after that. But his punishing schedule combined with his turbulent private life exacted a heavy toll.

For much of his later career he was in severe back pain after a piece of scenery fell on him, while he was emotionally shattered by the decision of Barbara Windsor to end their affair. "When he lost Babs he lost the will to live," said his agent. It is no exaggeration to say that Sid James died of a broken heart, collapsing on stage during an appearance in a typically risque farce entitled The Mating Game at the Sunderland Empire in 1976. In a reflection of his comedic stature, the audience at first roared with laughter when he fell, thinking this was part of his act. The mood changed only when the theatre manager came out to the front to explain that the problem was serious. There are claims that, ever since then, the ghost of Sid James has haunted the Sunderland Empire. That other comic genius Les Dawson was said to be so shaken by an encounter with Sid's spirit in 1989 that he refused to return to the venue. Whatever the truth about the ghost, Sid James's cheeky laugh will always be with us.

Related articles SID JAMES | A TELEVISION HEAVEN BIOGRAPHY Biography: Sid James With his battered features, wicked leer and possibly the most recognisable laugh in show business, Sid James appeared to the world as a streetwise Cockney ex- heavyweight boxer, an image that he actively encouraged because he knew that it would endear him to millions of fans worldwide. But Sid was no more an East End boy than he was a fighter. "Nobody could ever think of me as a star, " Sid once said. " All I can do is play myself." But being 'himself' was all he needed, because Sid James was loved by millions worldwide, and when he tragically died on stage at the Sunderland Empire on 26th April 1976, the world lost a unique talent. Laurie and Reine Cohen had been living in Johannesburg for a year when Reine discovered she was pregnant. In 1911 she gave birth to a boy, who they decided to call Maurice after one of Laurie's older brothers. The couple had been touring the theatres as an accomplished vaudeville act, usually as second-spotters, and with Maurice's arrival the act was temporarily broken up.

Thankfully, Laurie, billed as Lou James, was an accomplished stand-up comedian, so he was able to support the family fairly comfortably. However, news began to reach Reine that during her absence Lou had been entertaining a number of ladies in his dressing room. So, when Reine discovered that she was pregnant for a second time she was determined that the impending birth was going to cause as least disruption to the act as possible. On May 8th 1913, Reine gave birth to a second boy in the back room of her grandmother's house in Hancock Street, Newcastle, Natal. The boy was named Sidney Joel Cohen although it was shortened by other family members to Sollie. 'As soon as my mother was able to get up and about my parents were on tour again,' Sid later recalled. 'I was in a skip in the wings while my mum and dad were on stage doing their act.' By the age of three Sollie found himself thrust in front of the footlights and for a time it must seemed as though this was destined to be his future, as part of the family vaudeville act. But in 1919 Reine and Lou were spotted by an agent who offered them a tour of Australia.

They had no hesitation in accepting the offer. Sollie and Maurice were unceremoniously left with relatives in Natal while their parents left to pursue their careers. As far as Sollie was concerned it was an act of betrayal that shattered his relationship with his parents - especially his mother - forever. When the Australian tour finally finished in 1921, Reine returned home alone to collect her children. Now eight years of age, Sollie was sent to Hospital Hill Primary School, where his cousin Joel Cohen was a pupil. To add further confusion, the family had taken to calling Joel 'Sidney'. It was the young lads class teacher who resolved the problem. 'From now on you will be Joel, and Sollie, you will be called Sidney.' Sidney returned home and informed his mother of the name change. 'Okay,' she said 'we may as well change your surname, too.' The following day Sidney walked into school and told his teacher that from now on he would be known by a new name...Sidney James. Sid was not a good pupil. Academically he showed very little ability or interest and was often playing truant.

He left school without any formal qualifications and was allocated a place at a nearby Trade School where it was hoped he'd learn to be an electrician. When that failed his mother handed him an ultimatum. He could either join the family business (Reine had opened a hairdressing salon a few years earlier) or he could get out and fend for himself. He chose the former. Surprisingly, Sid found that he had an aptitude for cutting hair and after serving a year's apprenticeship under his uncle, Sonnie Solomon, he was cutting and styling hair for some of Marie Tudor Salon's more valued customers. One of them was the daughter of Joseph Delmont, a rich and respectable member of Johannesburg's Jewish community. Berthe Sadie (Toots) Delmont shared Sid's interest in music and dance -in particular Jazz and the Charleston. This interest rekindled Sid's childhood enjoyment of performing and began to undermine his 'forced' career. After several arguments he quit his job although his growing reputation as a hairdresser meant that offers from other establishments came flooding in. But Sid decided he wanted a complete change of scenery and moved to Kroonstad some miles away. It was 1932.

The move did little to placate Sid's dissatisfaction with his career and in an effort to break away he opened a dance school. He hired a large hall at the back of a Kroonstad restaurant and soon found that he had a steady stream of patrons. Not all of them, however, were simply interested in dancing lessons. At 19 years of age, tanned and athletic, Sid James discovered sex, and by all accounts there was no shortage of females who would turn up for dance lessons and then expect a little extra for their money. By late 1934 Sid had become tired of Kroonstad and was ready to return to Johannesburg. Marie Tudor welcomed him back and before long Sid and Toots Delmont were making plans for their wedding. Joe Delmont was horrified that his daughter should be marrying Sid, but also realised there was little he could do. On 12th August 1936 they married. Joe's wedding gift was a salon that he purchased for Sid in the basement of the Carlton Hotel. The hotel was owned by the Schlesinger family who almost twenty years later would invest in one of Britain's first independent TV companies. By this time Sid had acquired another obsession -gambling.

Johannesburg had two racetracks and Sid was a constant visitor to both. Now the owner of a thriving business employing around thirty stylists, Sid enjoyed the freedom that being a boss allowed him. He was full of self-confidence, had an instantly likeable manner about him and made friends very easily. Too easily. By the end of October 1936 - just eighty days after he married Toots, Joe Delmont discovered that Sid had been having an affair with a fellow hairdresser who was now pregnant. For the sake of his daughter, Joe paid the woman a substantial amount of money on condition that she leave South Africa and never disclose the truth. By February the next year Sid had got himself involved in another relationship with the same result. Once more Joe paid the girl off and once more Sid returned to his wife. A month later it was Toots' who informed Sid that she was expecting a child. Sid was furious. He claimed it was a plot by Joe to try and control him. Elizabeth James was born in December 1937 but Sid, who took little or no interest in the pregnancy was equally unmoved by the birth.

Some months earlier Sid had joined the Johannesburg Repertory Players and just before Christmas was offered a small part in 'Double Error' by Lee Thompson. Through his connections at the Rep, Sid was offered a part in a new series of children's radio broadcasts. He arrived at the studios of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and was partnered with a sixteen-year old girl called Moira Lister. 15 years later the two of them would work together again on another radio show -'Hancock's Half Hour'. Sid had more offers of work coming in from the SABC and was soon offered his first Johannesburg Rep lead in John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men'. In the meantime his and Toot's relationship had reached breaking point and ultimately it ended in divorce. Joe Delmont demanded the return of the salon he had purchased as a wedding present, but Sid refused to relinquish control. Delmont promptly put a price on Sid's head. Sid, perhaps wisely, decided it was time to join the Army. With his theatrical background, Sid, after spending some time with the South African Tanks Corp in Abyssinia throughout 1940, was ordered to return to Pretoria and join the Entertainment Unit.

Charged with putting on a show to entertain the troupes and promoted to Corporal, Sid took his company, known as 'The Crazy Gang', to the Middle East, starting in June 1942. The tour lasted eight months during which time the company found themselves pinned down under heavy fire at Tobruk. On his eventual return to Pretoria Sid was promoted to Staff Sergeant. In 1943 Sid married Meg Sergei. The couple had known each other since 1939, when Sid was still married to Toots, and Meg had volunteered for the Army when Sid signed up. In September 1945 Meg fell pregnant, and with the war almost over the couple began planning their future. An acquaintance of Sid's, Larry Skikne, had received a government grant to travel to London and enrol at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. On hearing this Sid and Meg applied for, and received a grant of £450.00. Enough to get them to England and tide them over until Sid could find a job. Years later Sid would help Larry Skikne to choose a new name -one that he became internationally known by; Laurence Harvey.

Sid and Meg arrived in England on Christmas Day 1946. They arranged to stay at 3 Queens Gate Mews near London's Gloucester Road. Sid had bought with him a letter of introduction to playwright Emlyn Williams and had also been given the names of two BBC producers. He wasted no time in writing to them outlining his stage and radio experience and informed the BBC producers that he was able to do American or Cockney accents as well as play tough-guy parts. He was also capable of some comedy. One of the recipients of Sid's letters, Peter Richmond, invited the unknown South African actor to an interview on Thursday 16th January at 11.30am. A few days later Sid and Meg were out walking through London's West End when they bumped into John Tore and Olga Lowe, some old friends from their last Entertainment Unit party. Tore and Lowe were on their way to an audition to play a gangster and his moll in a British film. At Tore's suggestion Sid accompanied them to Archie Parnell and Company, a theatrical agency that was now being run by Archie's widow, Phyllis Parnell.

On arrival at Parnell's office in Golden Square, Sid was promptly offered the part of the gangster, Eddie Clinton, in the film 'Black Memory'. Sid agreed to allow Phyllis to represent him. He had been in England for nine days and had got himself both a film role and an agent. 'Black Memory' was released without much ado; most critics agreed that it was a miserable and insignificant film but during its shooting Sid made friends with Michael Medwin who in turn got Sid a part in a film called 'Night Beat'. As previously, Sid's role was unaccredited. But he was beginning to get noticed and by August had signed a standard BBC contract to appear in a Light Programme drama, 'The Fabulous Miss Dangerfield'. By December he had been offered a second radio part and had already appeared in five films. 'It Always Rains On Sunday' is often (incorrectly) cited as Sid's first British screen appearance. The film, made by Ealing Studios, starred Jack Warner and Googie Withers. It was actually Sid's fourth film but was the first for which he received a credit. Critically it was well-received and brought Sid to the notice of a wider audience.

Impresario Jack Hylton was one of them. Hylton was looking for new talent for his play, 'Burlesque', which would open in Manchester in December 1947 and transfer to Her Majesty's Theatre in London in January 1948. Sid was offered a small part as a loveable drunk. By the time the play transferred to London Sid's part had been expanded to include an extra scene especially written for him. By the time the play ended its run Sid was already being offered other parts. As well as appearing regularly on the London stage he continued to accept a number of small, walk-on film parts. On 1st August 1948 Sid took the first steps in a new medium -television. Sid played Sharkey Morrison in two episodes of 'Kid Flannagan', broadcast on 1st and 5th August. Ten days later he landed his first lead role since arriving from South Africa when TV audiences saw him play Billy Johnson in a two-part drama, 'The Front Page'. On the home front things were not great between Sid and Meg.

Although Meg had given birth to a baby girl on 26th April 1947, the couple's relationship was rapidly deteriorating and rumours began to reach Meg of Sid's extra-marital affairs. As a result of this she began drinking heavily and on many occasions Sid would return home to find her drunk, which then led to further arguments. Sid had, in fact, also begun a relationship with a nineteen-year old actress, Valerie Assan. Early in 1951-film director Charles Chrichton, who was about to begin shooting a new comedy for Ealing Studios, approached Phyllis Parnell as he wanted to hire one of her clients but couldn't remember his name. From Chrichton's description, a rugged looking, gravel-throated actor, it soon became apparent that the man he wanted was Sid James. The comedy, written by T.E.B. Clarke, was about a plot to smuggle gold to the continent. Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway had already been cast, and Chrichton wanted Sid to play a Cockney safecracker. The film was to be called 'The Lavender Hill Mob'.

It was Sid's first 'A' feature movie, and it won an Academy Award for best script. From that moment on Sid appeared in a number of impressive films and was eventually offered a starring role in 'The Square Ring' in which he played the owner of a boxing ring. It was one of a number of films that Sid used to propagate the misconception that he had, prior to his showbiz career, earned a living in the boxing ring. There's no doubt that Sid was quick with his fists whenever it suited him, but in reality he'd never been anything more than a bar-room brawler. Still, the legend was good for the image. By 1953 Sid was a highly bankable British star and was even attracting interest from America, MGM being the first to cast him in a US production 'Crest Of A Wave' starring Gene Kelly. Another film of note that Sid appeared in that year (in all, he made 10 movies in 1953) was 'Orders Are Orders', a British comedy which starred Peter Sellers, Eric Sykes and Tony Hancock. A wind of change was in the air for British comedy.

The standard format for a radio light entertainment show was for it to feature the 'star name' or double act, accompanied by a number of upcoming comedians in small supporting roles, all partaking in a number of different sketches that were broken up by musical interludes. On 1st May 1953 an outline for a new type of comedy series landed on the desk of BBC's Head of Variety. Sid James' star was about to rise even higher... Beyond Carry On: Sid James's 20 best - and weirdest - films Beyond Carry On: Sid James's 20 best - and weirdest - films Three Hats for Lisa (Sid James) Andy Roberts 17 May 2016 • 12:15pm When Sidney James died on April 26, 1976 he was a ubiquitous presence in Britain; provincial ABC picture houses were packing them in with a Carry On revival; he was the the genial star of the ITV sitcom Bless This House; and when he died he was onstage in Sunderland, performing in the play The Mating Season.

In short, he was still “Sid”, the amiable and safely lecherous London everyman who invariably cackled whenever the leading lady’s clothes fell off. But he was also a versatile character actor who by 1956 was so much a staple of British cinema the director Ralph Thomas declared that “It wouldn’t be a British picture if it didn’t have Sidney James in it.” Although he never managed to have a career outside Britain, there’s much more tio his career than the Carry On films ; in fact, during the Fifties audiences knew that his “Also Starring” credit was as much a guarantee of cinematic satisfaction as “With David Lodge” or “And Richard Wattis”. Here’s the best of his surprisingly varied screen career. 1. The Small Back Room (1949) James left South Africa in 1946 and after only two years in the UK, he was cast in his first major role as “Knucksie” a kindly but very forceful pub landlord who rules his kingdom with an air of controlled power. “You go home,” he orders David Farrar’s alcoholic hero with understated and very real menace.

The role was an early indication of one of James’s main strengths as a screen actor - a sense of quiet, still, authority. As he once remarked to a fellow expatriate ‘We are surrounded by people who overplay. But me, with my pock-marks and strange diction and funny smile, all I have to do is underplay a part and the directors love it’. 2. The Man in Black (1949) In his homeland James played a variety of parts for radio and theatre – for a while, he toured with Dame Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies’ Shakespeare Company - and his early British film roles encompassed several authority figures. The most off-beat of these was as an upper-middle-class yoga expert in this Hammer B-film; once you’ve adjusted to the idea of Sid playing a tweed-jacketed squire named “Henry”, he’s actually quite believable. 3. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Lackery Wood (aka “The Wandsworth Boy”), one of two career thieves hired by Alec Guinness to rob the Bank of England, was the first of several roles James played for Ealing Studios.

Three years later it was remembered by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson when they were looking for an actor to fill the role of a crooked straight man in the new radio comedy Hancock’s Half Hour . 4. Emergency Call (1952) By the early 1950s, James was completely at home in British crime films, forever scowling at the law in a world of smog, Woodbine smoke and bomb site car dealers offering Ford Pilots of dubious provenance. His wide-boys often pattered away with brash desperation in the face of major retribution from the local gang boss, chief among them Danny Marks, a less than scrupulous boxing promoter. Emergency Call has all the ingredients of a typical early 1950s Brit film – Wolseley police cars, street lit by gas lamps and Sydney Tafler lurking in a pool hall – but James’s crumpled expression on meeting Eric Pohlmann’s Mr Big is worth the price of the DVD. It also makes one speculate on, had he not died comparatively young, the idea of Sidney James playing Arthur Daley… 5.

The House Across the Lake (1954) Throughout the early part of his cinema career James played a variety of nationalities - his "Italian" in The Venetian Bird is quite something - and directors often cast him as Americans. The House Across the Lake was one of 10 (!) films that James made in 1954 alone, and his incisive performance of quiet self-loathing as the US expatriate businessman Beverly Forrest is a far cry from his future Carry On film image - a lonely, dignified cuckold who takes refuge in alcohol and who is ultimately murdered by the one figure he trusts. 6. John and Julie (1955) A film that was once a staple of afternoon television, as welcome and reassuring as a chocolate digestive and a cup of tea. The plot has two West Country children running away from home to see the Coronation and encountering a London that resembles an animated Ladybird book, with red buses and bit-actors all apparently primed to utter the words “blimey. Mate”. The most memorable performances are from a young Peter Sellers as a deadpan Dorset PC and James as John’s father, the narrative’s one dissenting figure, forever grumbling and demanding ‘is rights.

7. Joe MacBeth (1955) Or, a prime example of the surreal heights attained by post-war British cinema. The writer-director Ken Hughes reworks Shakespeare’s tragedy as a gangland drama and bravely attempts a dystopian vision of New York, as re-created in the UK. The Hollywood actors Paul Douglas and Ruth Roman were magnificent as Joe and Lily MacBeth but far more distracting to British audiences is the casting of James as “Banky”, the less than imaginatively renamed Banquo figure. The “Ghost at the Feast” scene, featuring an aggrieved looking de-mob suit clad James materialising to the general consternation of Mrs. Macbeth, can never be unseen. 8. A King in New York (1957) James never actually worked in Hollywood but throughout the Fifties, he appeared with a gamut of American stars who were working in the UK. Casual viewers of afternoon television might double take at him sharing a scene with Gene Kelly in Seagulls Over Sorrento (1954), Burt Lancaster in Trapeze (1957), Joan Crawford in The Story of Esther Costello and even Katherine Hepburn in The Iron Petticoat.

A King in New York did allow him the priceless opportunity to share scenes with Charlie Chaplin – one that he takes to the full. Credit: Getty/Popperfoto 9. Quatermass 2 (1957) The best of British fantasy cinema often unfolds in a seemingly ordinary environment where the usual codes of society no longer apply, and Quatermass 2 was shot on location at a disquietingly alien looking Shell Haven oil refinery. Anyone who has seen the film remembers two particular moments – the death of the MP Vincent Broadhead at the food plant and James’s reporter being shot by the enemy as he frantically telephones the story to Fleet Street. Not only is his Jimmy Hall a role model for all journalists but a clear indication to the audience that any potential invader ruthless enough to kill Sidney James is terrifying indeed. Credit: Rex 10. Hell Drivers (1957) Any picture that boasts Sidney James, Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan, Herbert Lom, Gordon Jackson and a be-quiffed young Sean Connery as denizens of the world’s least appealing transport café has to be worth watching.

In fact, Hell Drivers, directed by the HUAC exile Cy Enfield, is a fascinatingly bleak interpretation of the road movie, with no-hopers and drifters attracted by high wages and no questions asked about their driving licences. Careening through a rural wasteland of prefabs and haulage yards, James plays “Dusty” as a bored and venial individual who provokes fights to stave off the misery. Credit: Rex 11. The Man Inside (1958) James once remarked that “I didn’t want to go to the States because I think there are too many blokes like me in the States”, but had he set his sights on Hollywood rather than Pinewood he might have enjoyed the sort of roles played by Ernest Borgnine. Much of The Man Inside was clearly shot in the UK, with various Chevrolets and Buicks dotted around the streets in an attempt to hide the Home Counties locations, and the cast - Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Bonar Colleano and Anthony Newley as a Spanish (!) taxi driver – is best described as “eclectic”. But James’s portrayal of the private detective Franklin does make one regret that he never appeared in US film noir.

12. The Silent Enemy (1958) The Second World drama was one of the few British film genres that James rarely appeared, a rare exception being the biopic of the naval frogman Commander ‘Buster’ Crabbe. The actor regarded the part of Chief Petty Officer Thorpe as ‘something special’ and it was the only time that he appeared in a major role opposite his wartime protégé Laurence Harvey. After The Silent Enemy, a future career strand in playing stalwart NCOs seemed to be in the offing but this never happened, largely because of James’s increasing association with the Carry On films. 13. Tommy the Toreador (1959) There are two current schools of thought regarding this Tommy Steele musical. The first is that the Beatles couldn’t arrive soon enough, especially after hearing Little White Bull. The second is to be bowled over by the narrative’s unabashed charm, as best illustrated by the entire Watch the Birdie sequence.

After all, any picture with a musical number festering Steele, Bernard Cribbins and James’s pencil moustachioed “Spanish” con-man (with an accent best described as ‘Tokyo-Johannesburg’) has to be worth a look. 14. Desert Mice (1959) Several of Sidney James’s film roles serve as reminders of stage opportunities that he spurned for reasons of finances or prudence. Harold Pinter wanted him to play Max in The Homecoming and he was Lionel Bart's first choice to portray Fagin in Oliver. James also turned down the role of Archie Rice in a South African theatre version of The Entertainer: “I couldn’t hope to come anywhere near Olivier’s performance,” he said. But his playing of Bert Bennett, the world’s worst comedian, in this WW2 comedy makes one deeply regret his decision. James Cagney Is Dead at 86; Master of Pugnacious Grace James Cagney Is Dead at 86; Master of Pugnacious Grace By PETER B.

FLINT James Cagney, the cocky and pugnacious film star who set the standard for gangster roles in ''The Public Enemy'' and won an Academy Award for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in ''Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' died yesterday at his Dutchess County farm in upstate New York. He was 86 years old. Mr. Cagney had been hospitalized earlier this month at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. But his wife of 64 years, known as Willie, took him back to the familiar surroundings of his home just over a week ago. Mr. Cagney had an explosive energy and a two-fisted vitality that made him one of the great film personalities of Hollywood's golden age. An actor who could evoke pathos or humor, he invested scores of roles with a hungry intensity, punctuated by breathless slang, curling lips and spontaneous humor. A former vaudevillian and, in his youth, a formidable street fighter, the 5-foot-8 1/2-inch, chunky, red-haired actor intuitively choreographed his motions with a body language that projected the image of an eager, bouncy terrier.

His walk was jaunty and his manner defiant. But along with his belligerence he displayed a comic zest in inventive, sometimes outrageous actions. He could play a hoofer as adeptly as a gangster, and whether brutish or impish, he molded a character that personified an urban Irish-American of irrepressible spirit. Mr. Cagney's streetwise mannerisms were a favored subject for caricature by stand-up comedians. But the actor's self-image was essentially that of a song-and-dance man. He became the screen's top mobster in 1931 in ''The Public Enemy,'' which included a bench-mark scene. Angered by his girlfriend's yearnings for respectability, he suddenly squashed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's incredulous face. Audiences were at first stunned, then intrigued by his brash performance, and he won instant stardom. He followed ''The Public Enemy'' with a popular series of gangster movies interspersed with musicals and, in 62 films over three decades, he went on to prove his versatility in a wide range of roles, later mostly within the law and including many military men, all played with conviction.

Some of the movies were inferior, but he was consistently praised by reviewers, who often described a movie as ''all'' or ''essentially'' Cagney. His favorite role was in ''Yankee Doodle Dandy'' (1942), a patriotic wartime tribute to George M. Cohan, the showman, actor and songwriter. The performance won Mr. Cagney an Academy Award. Four years earlier, the New York Film Critics Circle voted him best actor for his portrayal of an eventually repentant killer in ''Angels With Dirty Faces.'' Reviewing ''Yankee Doodle Dandy,'' Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: ''Mr. Cagney excels, both in characterization and jubilant song and dance'' with a ''buoyant'' performance ''that glows with energy.'' Will Rogers remarked of Mr.

Cagney, ''Every time I see him work, it looks to me like a bunch of firecrackers going off all at once.'' The actor's ''irresistible charm'' was cited by the author Kenneth Tynan, who wrote in 1952 that ''Cagney, even with a submachine gun hot in hand and corpses piling at his ankles, can still persuade many people that it was not his fault.'' Lauding the ''idiosyncratic verve that marks almost any Cagney film,'' Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote in 1973 that Mr. Cagney was ''one of the most intelligent and graceful actors ever to be disguised as a Hollywood star.'' President Reagan paid tribute to Mr. Cagney yesterday, saying: ''Nancy and I have lost a dear friend of many years today and America has lost one of her finest artists.'' Exhibitors voted the actor one of the top 10 box-office money makers in the late 1930's and early 40's.

After a series of disputes with Warner Brothers in which he charged he was overworked and underpaid, he became the studio's highest-paid star in 1938, earning $234,000. The next year he was listed as one of the 10 biggest-salaried Americans, with, the Treasury Department said, an income of $368,333. Cagney the screen hoodlum contrasted sharply with Cagney the man. Offscreen, he was amiable, self-effacing and reflective, a confirmed family man who enjoyed a close circle of friends and avoided the Hollywood party and nightclub circuit. He did not smoke and rarely drank liquor. He was much admired by colleagues, from directors to stagehands. In 1974, he became the first actor to receive the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute for major contributions to films and for timeless artistry. Among his other honors were a citation for career achievement awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington in 1980 and the Medal of Freedom, the Government's highest civilian award, in 1984.

Looked With Disdain On Method Acting The actor was self-taught and a keen observer who varied his roles with mannerisms and eccentricities of men he had known. He did all his own, sometimes brutal, fight scenes, learned judo and occasionally used Yiddish humor he had learned in his youth. He was not impressed by adulation, believing, ''One shouldn't aspire to stardom -one should aspire to doing the job well.'' He dismissed Method acting with disdain. ''You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them,'' he said. ''I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can.'' He made these observations in his 1976 autobiography, ''Cagney by Cagney.'' He said he wrote it because of errors in unauthorized biographies.

His early characterizations included a dynamic vaudeville director speeding his cast from theater to theater and singing and tap-dancing with Ruby Keeler as Shanghai Lil in ''Footlight Parade'' (1933), the comic Bottom in Shakespeare's ''Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1935), a wharf-rat turned gang leader in ''Frisco Kid'' (1935), a scenarist in a Hollywood spoof, ''Boy Meets Girl'' (1938), a blinded boxer in ''City for Conquest'' (1940) and a naive dentist in ''The Strawberry Blonde'' (1941). Other roles included a newsman turned counterspy in ''Blood on the Sun'' (1945), a master espionage agent in ''13 Rue Madeleine'' (1947), a barroom philosopher in William Saroyan's ''Time of Your Life'' (1948), a psychopathic murderer with a mother fixation in ''White Heat'' (1949) and a political demagogue in ''A Lion Is in the Streets'' (1953).

He also played the hoodlum husband of the singer Ruth Etting, played by Doris Day, in ''Love Me or Leave Me'' (1955); a quirky Navy captain in ''Mister Roberts'' (1955); Lon Chaney, the long-suffering silent-film star, in ''Man of a Thousand Faces'' (1957); an Irish rebel obsessed with violence in ''Shake Hands With the Devil'' (1959) and the celebrated Adm. William F. Halsey in ''The Gallant Hours'' (1960). In 1961, Mr. Cagney starred in Billy Wilder's ''One, Two, Three,'' a razor-sharp satire of East-West relations. Then, though at the top of his talent, he announced his retirement from the screen. The actor was born and raised in Manhattan, but he was smitten with country living while on a childhood visit to the then pastoral Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Accordingly, he retired with his wife to their farm near Millbrook in Dutchess County, New York, and raised Morgan horses.

In 1936 he had also bought a farm in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., where the Cagneys spent as much time as possible between films. For two decades, the actor received many offers to return to the movies, including many from major directors, but he steadfastly refused them. However, in 1981 Mr. Cagney ended his retirement. He had been increasingly troubled by several ailments, and his doctors advised him to be more active. Out of Retirement In Forman's 'Ragtime' The director Milos Forman persuaded him to play a cameo role in the movie ''Ragtime,'' based on the best-selling novel by E. L. Doctorow. The actor played a combative turn-of-the-century New York City police chief, prompting Vincent Canby of The Times to write that the Cagney ''manner and the humor are undiminished.'' The actor, the critic said, ''does a lot with very little.'' In his early 80's Mr. Cagney suffered from diabetes and the effects of several strokes, and he mostly used a wheelchair.

Nonetheless, he made his first made-for-television movie in 1984, playing the protagonist, a crotchety but generous former boxing champion, in ''Terrible Joe Moran.'' Despite the actor's infirmities, John J. O'Connor of The Times reported that ''the old Cagney magic comes through.'' James Francis Cagney Jr. was born July 17, 1899, on Manhattan's Lower East Side and grew up there and in the Yorkville section. His father was of Irish descent, a bartender and, briefly, a saloon owner who died in a flu epidemic in 1918. His mother, the former Carolyn Nelson, who was of Norwegian stock, was the mainstay of the family of five children. Yorkville was then a street-brawling neighborhood, and Jimmy became a champion battler. As a catcher for a Yorkville amateur baseball team, he played a game in 1919 at Sing Sing prison, where five former schoolmates were serving terms. Eight years later, one was executed in the electric chair.

The Cagneys were poor, and from the age of 14 Jimmy worked simultaneously as an office boy for The New York Sun, stacking books at a library and doing odd jobs at the Lenox Hill Settlement House. On Sundays, he sold tickets for the Hudson River Day Line. After graduation from Stuyvesant High School, he enlisted in the Student Army Training Corps at Columbia University. But, with money needed at home, he dropped out, worked as a waiter and wrapped packages at Wanamaker's Department Store. Needing more money, he drifted into vaudeville as a dancer at 19. He had to fake it at first, studying professionals, stealing their steps and modifying them to mold his own style. Unexpectedly, the street tough's first role was a ''chorus girl'' in a female-impersonation act. In 1920 Mr. Cagney started in the chorus of a Broadway musical, ''Pitter Patter,'' and graduated to specialty dancer. A co-player was Frances Willard (Willie) Vernon, whom he married in 1922. Two decades later they adopted two children, James Jr., who died in 1984, and Cathleen.

The actor toured in vaudeville with his wife and occasionally performed in short-lived Broadway shows. Through the 1920's, often out of work and money, he attended every cast call he could, occasionally being dismissed, he recalled, ''because I had exaggerated my abilities.'' But in 1930 he played a cowardly killer in a melodrama, ''Penny Arcade,'' with Joan Blondell gamely offering comedy relief as his girlfriend. Warner Brothers took the two to Hollywood to film the play as ''Sinners' Holiday.'' They both won contracts and co-starred together in half a dozen movies over the next several years. 'Direct Gutter Quality' In Gangster Role After playing supporting roles in three movies, Mr. Cagney got the second lead in ''The Public Enemy.'' However the keen-eyed director, William Wellman, insisted that the actor switch roles with the scheduled lead, Edward Woods, because Mr. Cagney could project what Mr. Wellman termed the ''direct gutter quality'' of the tougher of the two street chums who turn to crime. The picture was a commercial blockbuster that opened an era of realistic gangster movies.

Many of the actor's other early movies for Warner were made cheaply and quickly, within a few weeks, with the crews sometimes working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. ''Talent was not nurtured, it was consumed,'' Mr. Cagney observed. ''We did our job. If anyone was practicing art, I never saw it.'' Many of his directors, he wrote, were ''pedestrian workmen, mechanics,'' some of whom ''couldn't direct you to a cheap delicatessen.'' But the young performers, led by Mr. Cagney, varied the formula scripts with clever improvisations and made the lean melodramas effective and entertaining. The actor's affectionate jabs on actresses' chins were gestures his father had used. In ''The St. Louis Kid,'' weary of punching, he slammed antagonists with his forehead. In ''Angels With Dirty Faces'' he imitated a hoodlum neighbor in Yorkville, hitching up his trousers, twisting his neck, snapping his fingers and bringing his hands together in a soft smack. The Cagney clan was tightly knit. The actor's brother William was his business manager.

They produced some Cagney films independently, and their sister Jeanne, who died in 1984, acted in several Cagney movies. Politically, the actor was a longtime New Deal Democrat who, in later years, became a conservative because of what he perceived as a moral confusion threatening Americans' values. In 1940 he was accused of Communist sympathies by a Los Angeles politician before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He appeared before the committee, which exonerated him. The issue arose from contributions he had made and his fund-raising activities for many causes, including providing food for striking California farm workers and an ambulance for the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. The actor did not generally speak out on public issues, except one, ecology. In 1958 he made radio appeals for preserving the nation's resources. ''Outside of my family,'' he said, ''the prime concern of my life has been nature and its order, and how we have been savagely altering that order.'' In World War II, Mr.

Cagney was chairman of the actors' group of the National Victory Committee, appearing in many benefits to sell War Bonds and in long tours to entertain the Armed Forces in this country and overseas. At the time, he was also president of the Screen Actors Guild. In retirement, Mr. Cagney read widely, wrote verse, painted, played classical guitar, satisfied his longtime zest for sailing and farming and limbered up by dancing a chorus or two to ragtime music. ''Absorption in things other than self,'' he observed, ''is the secret of a happy life.'' Plans for funeral services were not immediately announced. James Stewart, the Hesitant Hero, Dies at 89 James Stewart, the Hesitant Hero, Dies at 89 By THE NEW YORK TIMES James Stewart, whose movie portrayals of decent, idealistic and naive small-town Americans made him a beloved national icon, died yesterday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 89. He died from a blood clot in his lung, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Stewart's performances in some 80 movies earned him every major award bestowed for his craft, and consistent acclaim and popularity for more than half a century.

He was the last of that rare breed of male stars whose careers certified the star system as it operated virtually from the beginning of the sound era. Actors like Mr. Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, John Wayne and Henry Fonda were larger than life, and because the fusion of the performers' public and private personalities created something bigger than the sum of the two parts, something mythical. The lanky actor with unruly hair and an ungainly stride had a boyish grin and an engaging manner. The Stewart way of speaking -- laconic, with a hesitant, nasal drawl -- is instantly recognizable by virtually every American. His early screen image, like his personal life, epitomized a Middle American ideal in a confusing, sophisticated world. ''America lost a national treasure today,'' President Clinton said yesterday. ''Jimmy Stewart was a great actor, a gentleman and a patriot.'' His archetypal role (and his own favorite) was that of George Bailey, the small-town banker in ''It's a Wonderful Life,'' Frank Capra's moralistic fantasy in which the hero is rescued from suicide by a pixieish angel who shows him how much meaner life would have been in his hometown without him.

The 1946 feature-length Christmas card was a failure among audiences, who dismissed it as overly sentimental, but in later decades it became one of the most popular movies ever made and a holiday staple on television. After viewing ''It's a Wonderful Life,'' President Harry S. Truman concluded, ''If Bess and I had a son, we'd want him to be just like Jimmy Stewart.'' But, as Mr. Stewart matured, the diffident innocents he played in the late 1930's and 40's gave way to more subtle and complicated roles -- troubled, querulous protagonists torn between firmness and vulnerability, roles in conflict with his accepted image. Mr. Stewart's subtle and seemingly effortless work prompted the critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times to hail him in 1990 as a great behavioral actor who absorbed each role into his own physical frame, shaping the mannerisms, the voice and even the intelligence to coincide with those of his own persona. ''This he does with such simplicity and ease that, for many years, the initial response was to say that what he does isn't acting, followed up by the damp, desperate criticism that he is always the same,'' Mr.

Canby said. The roles for which he was best remembered include a naively heroic young senator in ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939), a part that earned him major stardom; a forthright reporter redeeming a headstrong heiress (Katharine Hepburn) in ''The Philadelphia Story'' (1940) and a relentless defense attorney in ''Anatomy of a Murder'' (1959). Also in the Stewart gallery of folk heroes were a gun-shy marshal who tamed a town -- and Marlene Dietrich -- in ''Destry Rides Again'' (1939); Monty Stratton, the Chicago White Sox pitcher who returned to the mound after losing a leg, in ''The Stratton Story'' (1949); a beloved big-band leader in ''The Glenn Miller Story'' (1954) and Charles A. Lindbergh, a boyhood hero, in his solitary 1927 trans-Atlantic flight in ''The Spirit of St. Louis'' (1957).

Ungainly, Self-Effacing And Somehow Debonair Later in his career, a tougher, more worldly Stewart emerged in such Anthony Mann westerns as ''Winchester '73,'' ''The Far Country,'' ''Bend of the River,'' ''The Naked Spur'' and ''The Man From Laramie.'' Alfred Hitchcock used him against type in such films as ''Rope'' and ''The Man Who Knew Too Much'' and especially as a voyeur photographer in ''Rear Window'' and as a retired detective entranced by two forms of a mythic Kim Novak in ''Vertigo.'' When interviewed about his techniques, the self-effacing actor replied characteristically, ''I don't act, I react,'' and described himself as an ''inarticulate man who tries,'' without having ''all the answers, but for some reason, somehow, I make it.'' He offered his criterion for success: ''If you can do a part and not have the acting show.'' His modest appraisal was challenged by Donna Reed, his co-star in ''It's a Wonderful Life.'' ''He's so natural, so realistic, that I never knew whether he was talking to me or doing the scene'' she observed.

''He's the most demanding actor I've ever worked with.'' Joan Crawford, another co-star, praised Mr. Stewart as an ''endearing perfectionist'' with ''a droll sense of humor and a shy way of watching you to see if you react to that humor.'' Weighing Mr. Stewart's work opposite such matchless actresses as Margaret Sullavan in Ernst Lubitsch's ''Shop Around the Corner,'' Jean Arthur in Capra's ''Mr. Smith,'' Ms. Hepburn in George Cukor's ''Philadelphia Story,'' Marlene Dietrich in George Marshall's ''Destry Rides Again'' and Grace Kelly in ''Rear Window,'' Mr. Canby said: he ''reveals a quality that at first seems out of sync with the shy, stammering personality favored by nightclub imitators. He is debonair. He has the same humor and lightness of touch that Fred Astaire expresses only through dance. Mr. Stewart is debonair when dousing Miss Dietrich and Una Merkel with a bucketful of water ('Destry Rides Again') or confined to a wheelchair with one leg in a plaster cast ('Rear Window').

He is debonair even when wrestling with terrible guilt and a sense of loss in 'Vertigo.' Also like Astaire when he dances, Mr. Stewart is best seen on the screen in full figure, with all of the lean 6-foot-3 1/2-inch man captured in a single frame. He acts with his whole body. The slight stoop and the way his wrinkled jacket hangs from his shoulders are as integral to his performance in 'Harvey' as any of playwright Mary Chase's lines.'' As Best Friend To an Invisible Rabbit One of the actor's most admired performances was that of the gently eccentric tippler Elwood P. Dowd in ''Harvey,'' whose companion was the title character, a giant, invisible rabbit. The actor played the film role in 1950 after appearing in the whimsical comedy on Broadway in 1947, then played the role again in a triumphant 1970 revival in New York and London that co-starred Helen Hayes. Mr. Stewart appeared in half a dozen Broadway plays and in occasional television dramas.

Also on television, he starred in two of his own series in the early 1970's, first as a family patriarch and college professor in ''The Jimmy Stewart Show,'' a bucolic sitcom, and then as ''Hawkins,'' a shrewd country lawyer. Mr. Stewart received the American Film Institute's eighth life-achievement award in 1980, a Kennedy Center Honor in 1983 for lifetime contributions to the performing arts, a special 1984 Academy Award for ''50 years of meaningful performances, for his high ideals, both on and off the screen,'' a 1985 Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the nation's highest civilian honor, and the 1990 annual tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. In receiving the honorary Oscar to a standing ovation, Mr. Stewart singled out for special thanks Capra and other directors ''who so generously and brilliantly guided me through the no man's land of my own good intentions.'' He had also won an Academy Award for the best performance by an actor in 1940 for ''The Philadelphia Story'' and four other Oscar nominations, for ''Mr.

Smith Goes to Washington,'' ''It's a Wonderful Life,'' ''Harvey'' and ''Anatomy of a Murder.'' Among many other honors were film festival and critics' citations, a Tony Award and the 1968 Screen Actors Guild Award for ''fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession.'' Young performers, he believed, should start on the stage and get as much theater experience as they can in stock companies and road shows. Adapting to a live audience, he advised, is an actor's toughest hurdle. After getting his professional start on Broadway, he honed his craft in Hollywood's big-studio era of the 1930's and 40's, whose leaders he credited with great judgment, the courage to take chances and deep affection for movie-making. The studio system, he said, was ''a wonderful training ground for actors and actresses.'' ''I came out here as a contract player at MGM, and I went to work every day,'' he said. ''It might be a big part in a little picture, or a little part in a big picture. You learned your craft by working at it.

You crawled before you walked.'' Early on, Jimmy Stewart became a symbol of patriotism as the first top Hollywood actor to enter the service in World War II. Determined to become a combat pilot, he first logged 300 hours of flying because at the age of 33 he was too old to be an aviation cadet. He put on 10 pounds to meet the Army's minimum weight requirement for his tall, thin frame. Mr. Stewart was inducted in March 1941, nine months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war. He qualified quickly as a pilot. Assigned to the Second Combat Wing of the Eighth Air Force in England, he was successively the operations officer, chief of staff and squadron commander. He eventually led 20 bombing missions over Germany, hitting targets in Bremen, Frankfurt and Berlin. He won a cascade of decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross twice, one of them for piloting the lead plane in a spectacular raid on key aircraft factories in Brunswick, Germany. He also received the Air Medal, a succession of oak leaf clusters, six battle stars and the Croix de Guerre with Palm.

When the war ended he was mustered out a colonel but remained in the Air Force Reserve and, in 1959, the Senate approved his promotion to brigadier general, making him the highest-ranking entertainer in the American military. He retired from the Reserve in 1968. After a long tenure as Hollywood's most eligible bachelor, Mr. Stewart was married in 1949, at the age of 41, to Gloria Hatrick McLean, a former model. They lived for decades in a Tudor-style house in Beverly Hills, at first with two boys, Ronald and Michael, from Mrs. Stewart's previous marriage, and then with their own twin girls, who were born in 1951. First Lieut. Ronald W. McLean was killed in Vietnam in 1969. Mrs. Stewart died in 1994. Mr. Stewart is survived by his other stepson, Michael, of Phoenix, and his daughters, Judy Merrill of San Francisco and Kelly Harcourt of Davis, Calif.

The actor was born James Maitland Stewart on May 20, 1908, in the western Pennsylvania town of Indiana, to Alexander Stewart and the former Elizabeth Ruth Jackson, who were of Scotch-Irish descent. The Stewart family had owned and managed a prosperous hardware store for half a century, and his father served in both the Spanish-American War and World War I. Jimmy and his two younger sisters, Mary and Virginia, were taught the value of responsibility, prudence and frugality. When not doing chores, the spindly, spectacled youth wrote and staged plays and played the accordion. At prep school, the Mercersburg Academy in south-central Pennsylvania, he went out for football, track, dramatics and music. During summer vacations he was a construction laborer. Then, at Princeton, he joined the Triangle Club, rising quickly from accordionist to leading roles in musicals. He graduated in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in architecture. A Career Alternative To Architecture The Depression era offered little demand for architects, so he tested his avocation, accepting an invitation from a college friend, Joshua Logan, to join the University Players at Falmouth, Mass., on Cape Cod.

The summer stock company included Henry Fonda, who was to become a lifelong friend even though Mr. Stewart was a conservative Republican and Fonda a fervently liberal Democrat. The friendship endured, Mr. Stewart said in 1983, because ''50 years ago we agreed not to discuss politics.'' Mr. Stewart won his first major role on Broadway in 1934, as a gallant soldier-guinea pig in ''Yellow Jack,'' Sidney Howard's drama about research on yellow fever, and then played a youth stunned by the adultery of his mother (Judith Anderson) in ''Divided by Three.'' Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times acclaimed the neophyte's performance as ''a minor masterpiece.'' In 1935 he won a contract with MGM, where he made his feature debut as a cub reporter in ''The Murder Man.'' The crime melodrama starred Spencer Tracy, who spotted the newcomer's tenseness, told him to ''forget the camera is there,'' and later recalled how ''that was all he needed; in his very first scene he showed he had all the good things.'' Mr.

Stewart's intelligent, deceptively casual acting in two dozen movies over the next five years earned him stardom. Among these early films, mostly comedies and romantic dramas, were ''Wife vs. Secretary,'' ''Born to Dance'' (in which he struggled gamely to sing Cole Porter's ''Easy to Love'' to Eleanor Powell), ''Vivacious Lady,'' ''The Shopworn Angel,'' ''You Can't Take It With You,'' ''Made for Each Other'' and ''No Time for Comedy.'' Returning from war in late 1945, Mr. Stewart insisted that his military exploits not be publicized. He avoided studio contracts and freelanced, earning increasingly high salaries and becoming a pioneer of the percentage deal, under which he reportedly received up to half the profits of his movies. On screen, he shook off his country-boy manner and assumed a new persona, a complex, sometimes cryptic image that was shaped in collaborations in the 1950's and 60's with directors like Hitchcock, Mr. Mann and John Ford. The actor played a cold bounty hunter in Mr.

Mann's ''Naked Spur'' (1953), a dedicated reporter in ''Call Northside 777'' (1948), a clown wanted for murder in ''The Greatest Show on Earth'' (1952), the photographer turned sleuth in Hitchcock's ''Rear Window'' (1954), the obsessive romantic in Hitchcock's ''Vertigo'' (1958) and a cynical marshal in Ford's ''Two Rode Together'' (1961). Stumping for Reagan And Other Conservatives Other later movies included ''Broken Arrow,'' ''The Far Country,'' ''Strategic Air Command,'' ''The F.B.I. Story,'' ''How the West Was Won,'' ''The Flight of the Phoenix'' and ''The Shootist,'' a 1976 valedictory to the career of a longtime friend, John Wayne. Mr. Stewart shunned publicity, but was invariably good-humored with interviewers. In later years, he was a leading spokesman for conservative political and economic causes and a frequent campaigner for Republican political friends like Richard M. Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

One of Hollywood's most astute businessmen, he became a multimillionaire, with diversified investments including real estate, oil wells, a charter-plane company and membership on major corporate boards. On television he appeared in commercials for several years for Firestone tires under a contract said to be worth $1 million. Questioned about it, a spokesman said Mr. Stewart had ''warm personal relations with the Firestone family'' and admiration for their charitable gifts. In the late 1980's and early 90's, his grandfatherly inflections were heard on commercials for Campbell's Home Cookin' Soups. In 1989, the actor broke into print with ''Jimmy Stewart and His Poems,'' a 32-page book of verse that became a best seller. In later years Mr. Stewart became an advocate of protecting and preserving classic American movies against computerized coloring or re-editing for television. In 1988, he testified before Congress on behalf of a bill that later established a national panel to designate major films for conspicuous labeling to alert the public that they had been colored or otherwise altered.

His favorite movies were westerns, he said, ''because they're told against the background of a very dramatic period in our history'' and ''give people a feeling of hope, an affirmative statement of living.'' As he approached his 80th birthday, he was asked how he wanted to be remembered. As someone, he said, who ''believed in hard work and love of country, love of family and love of community.'' Mr. Smith Went To Hollywood James Stewart made more than 80 films, ranging from frothy comedies to westerns and dramas of suspense. These are among the most memorable. FILMS You Can't Take It With You (1938) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Destry Rides Again (1939) The Shop Around the Corner (1940) The Mortal Storm (1940) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Call Northside 777 (1948)

Question: In which year did actor Sid James die?
Answer: 1976