James Mitchell (actor)

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James Mitchell

James Mitchell with Anne Bancroft
Born February 29, 1920 (1920-02-29) (age 88)
Sacramento, California, United States
Other name(s) Jim Mitchell
Occupation Dancer, Actor

James Mitchell is an American dancer and actor. Although he is best-known to television audiences as Palmer Cortlandt on the soap opera All My Children (1979 – present), theatre and dance historians remember him as one of Agnes de Mille's leading dancers. Mitchell's skill at combining dance and acting was considered something of a novelty; in 1959, the critic Olga Maynard singled him out as "an important example of the new dancer-actor-singer in American ballet", pointing to his interpretive abilities and "masculine" technique.[1]

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[edit] Early life

Mitchell's parents emigrated from England to Northern California, where they operated a fruit farm in Turlock. In 1923, Mitchell's mother, Edith, left his father and returned to England with Mitchell's brother and sister; she and Mitchell had no further contact. Unable to run a farm while single-handedly raising his remaining son, Mitchell's father fostered him out for several years to vaudevillians Gene and Katherine King. After Mitchell's mother died, however, his father remarried and brought both of his sons, but not his daughter, back to Turlock. At age seventeen, Mitchell left Turlock for Los Angeles, where he remained close to the Kings.[2]

[edit] Career

While studying drama at Los Angeles City College, Mitchell was introduced to modern dance at the school of the famed teacher and choreographer, Lester Horton. After receiving his associate's degree, he joined Horton's company, where he remained for nearly four years. While working with Horton, Mitchell became a close friend of dancer Bella Lewitzky; in the 1970s, he became President of the Board of Directors of her Dance Foundation, and afterwards remained a “major longtime […] supporter” of hers.[3] In 1944, Horton took Mitchell to New York with him to form a new dance company, but the venture abruptly collapsed.

As it happened, the failure of Horton's company was a significant turning point in Mitchell's career: while struggling to find either acting or dancing roles in New York, he successfully auditioned for Agnes de Mille, who was choreographing her first musical since Oklahoma! Given the option between touring with Helen Hayes and dancing for de Mille, Mitchell chose de Mille.[4] Bloomer Girl (1944) began an important artistic partnership with de Mille that lasted from 1944 to 1969 and spanned theater, film, television, and concert dance. De Mille's biographer, Carol Easton, describes him as the “quintessential male de Mille dancer” and de Mille's “closest confidant” in her artistic life.[5] In one of her autobiographical volumes, de Mille herself said of Mitchell that he had "probably the strongest arms in the business, and the adagio style developed by him and his partners has become since a valued addition to ballet vocabulary."[6]

Mitchell's work with de Mille:

  • Bloomer Girl (Broadway, 1944): principal male dancer; assistant choreographer
  • Brigadoon (Broadway, 1947): Harry Beaton; assistant choreographer
  • Paint Your Wagon (Broadway, 1951): Pete Billings; assistant choreographer
  • Come Summer (Broadway, 1969): assistant director
  • American Ballet Theatre (1950-51, 1955, 1956): Rodeo (Head Wrangler — ABT premiere cast), Fall River Legend (Pastor), Rib of Eve (Husband — world premiere cast)
  • Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre (1953-54): principal dancer
  • Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1964): Bitter Weird (Bridegroom)
  • Oklahoma! (film, 1955): Dream Curly (excerpted in That's Dancing!)
  • Omnibus (TV, 1956): featured dancer, “Art of Ballet”; featured dancer, “Art of Choreography”
  • Bloomer Girl (TV, 1956): The Returned Soldier
  • Gold Rush (TV, 1958): Miner

Mitchell's other close associations were with Gower Champion, Eugene Loring (with whom he also trained), and Jerome Robbins:

Gower Champion:

Eugene Loring:

Jerome Robbins:

  • Billion Dollar Baby (Broadway, 1946): Rocky Who Dances
  • American Ballet Theatre (1950-51): Facsimile
  • American Theatre Laboratory (1967-69): instructor and company member

Mitchell worked consistently on stage in both musicals and straight dramas until the late 1970s, including numerous regional theatre roles across the country. His other significant credits include Broadway appearances in Carousel, First Impressions, and The Deputy; off-Broadway appearances in Winkelberg, The Threepenny Opera, Livin’ the Life, and The Father; L'Histoire du Soldat at New York City Opera; and national tours of The Rainmaker (with future All My Children co-star Frances Heflin), The King and I, Funny Girl, and The Threepenny Opera.

As a film performer, Mitchell had only moderate success. In the early 1940s, he did both chorus dancing and extra work in a number of minor musicals and westerns. On the strength of his award-winning performance in Brigadoon, Mitchell was scouted by producer Michael Curtiz and signed to a contract at Warner Brothers. Curtiz initially intended to put Mitchell in a picture with Doris Day that never materialized.[7] After several months, Mitchell eventually made two films for Warner Brothers, including Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory, before following Curtiz to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At MGM, he played supporting roles in six films between 1949-55, most notably Anthony Mann's Border Incident, Jacques Tourneur's Stars in My Crown, and Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon — an experience he loathed so much that he still refuses to see the film[8] — but he did not work for the studio again after appearing in the infamously over-budgeted flop The Prodigal (1955). Mitchell's film career ended abruptly after he starred in Hal R. Makelim's Western The Peacemaker (1956), the only time he was ever billed above the title. After that, it took over two decades before he made his next and what proved to be his final appearance on the big screen, The Turning Point (1977).

On television, Mitchell was considerably more active, especially in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition to working regularly as a dancer, Mitchell played dramatic roles in a number of TV movies and prime-time series, as well as in the anthologies that were once so popular, such as Play of the Week, Gruen Guild Playhouse, and Armstrong Circle Theatre. In 1964, he took his first contract role on a soap opera in The Edge of Night, as the corrupt Capt. Lloyd Griffin; this was followed by the entire run of Where the Heart Is (1969-73), in which he played the male lead, Julian Hathaway. During the late 1970s, he was a guest star on Lou Grant and Charlie's Angels.

Besides performing, Mitchell occasionally worked as a director and choreographer, particularly in the late 1960s and 1970s. He staged musicals at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, and The Muny, among other theatres. In 1956, he and Katherine Litz co-staged The Enchanted for American Ballet Theatre.

After Mack & Mabel flopped in 1974, Mitchell's performing career nearly ended altogether. He earned a BA from Empire State College and an MFA from Goddard College in order to teach full-time at the college level, and taught movement for actors at Juilliard, Yale University, and Drake University. In 1979, after several years of only occasional work, Mitchell was hired to play the villainous businessman Palmer Cortlandt on the soap opera All My Children. Initially hired for only one year, Mitchell is still on contract with the show as of 2008, although since 2002 his appearances have become increasingly rare. While not senior in terms of his time with AMC, Mitchell is currently the oldest actor on the show by one week (over Eileen Herlie), and is the third-oldest contract player on daytime television (after Frances Reid of Days of Our Lives and Helen Wagner of As the World Turns).

Mitchell is one of the dancers featured in an upcoming Smithsonian Institution touring exhibit, The Dancer Within, which consists of portraits taken by dance photographer Rose Eichenbaum.[9]

[edit] Awards and nominations

  • Theatre World Award, 1947: Brigadoon
  • Donaldson Award, Best Dancer of the Year, 1947: Brigadoon
  • Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, 1985, Drake University
  • Daytime Emmy Award nominations, Outstanding Actor, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1989: All My Children

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Olga Maynard, The American Ballet (Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1959), 149.
  2. ^ Early life: virtually identical accounts with more or less detail in Meredith Brown, “James Mitchell: Dancing His Way into Your Heart,” Soap Opera Digest 5.17 (28 October 1980): 40-41; Robert Schork, “Flying High,” Soap Opera Magazine 7.45 (18 November 1997): 21-23; “Rebecca Herbst & James Mitchell,” Soapography (aired 2 September 2006).
  3. ^ Lewitzky Closes an Era with a Warning for the Future (1994). Retrieved on 2007-07-07.
  4. ^ Michael Portantiere, "From the Scrapbook of James Mitchell", In Theater 87 (24 May 1999): 30.
  5. ^ Carol Easton, No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille, new ed. (New York: Da Capo, 2000), 233, 258. ISBN 978-0306809750
  6. ^ Agnes de Mille, And Promenade Home (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958), 195. Dance teacher and historian Shelley C. Berg comments that "Mitchell's ability to execute strenuous lifts has made his parts in de Mille ballets a particular challenge for dancers later performing his roles." Berg, "Saving a Legacy: Agnes de Mille's 'Gold Rush,'" Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 19.1 (Summer 2001): 89 n. 56.
  7. ^ Thomas F. Brady, "Stewart is Sought for Role by Curtiz", New York Times 20-9-1947: Amusements 12.
  8. ^ Dream Curly (2007-11-21). Retrieved on 2007-07-07.
  9. ^ The Dancer Within (exhibition catalog) (2007). Retrieved on 2007-12-24.

[edit] Further reading

  • Easton, Carol. No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille. New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 1996. ISBN 0-316-19970-2. (Mitchell is interviewed extensively.)
  • Gilvey, John Anthony. Before the Parade Passes By: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-33776-0. (For Mitchell's performance in Carnival!)
  • Lawrence, Greg. Dance with Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2001. ISBN 0-399-14652-0. (For Mitchell's work in Billion Dollar Baby, American Ballet Theatre, and the American Theatre Laboratory.)
  • Mitchell's correspondence with Agnes de Mille is held in the Agnes de Mille Collection: Correspondence and Writings at the New York Public Library. The library also holds a number of other materials relating to Mitchell's stage career, including two silent films of Mitchell performing with the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Mitchell, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mitchell, Jim
SHORT DESCRIPTION Dancer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Sacramento, California
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages