James Gammon(1940-2010)
- Actor
Rugged-looking James Gammon first broke into the entertainment industry
not as an actor but as a TV cameraman. From there, his weatherbeaten
features, somewhat menacing attitude and a tough-as-nails voice--the
kind that used to be described in detective novels as
"whiskey-soaked"--reminiscent of
'40s noir icon Charles McGraw
got him work in front of the cameras in TV westerns (though he sounds
as if he's from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born and raised in
Illinois) and he made his film debut in 1967. Not the kind of guy you'd
see in a tuxedo in a Noël Coward
drawing-room comedy--unless he was one of a gang holding them
up--Gammon could play lighter parts also, as evidenced by his work as
the manager in the baseball comedy
Major League (1989) and in his
regular role as Don Johnson's
rambunctious father in Johnson's
Nash Bridges (1996) series.
