--- name: "James Gleason" canonical: "https://film.one/person/james-gleason" roles: ["Actor"] born: "23 May 1882" died: "12 April 1959" reviewed_on_fi1m: 4 average_fi1m_score: 81 average_as: "actor" average_over: 3 updated: "2026-09-20T01:34:19.251753+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # James Gleason Actor. Born 23 May 1882 in New York City, New York, USA. Died 12 April 1959. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 23 May 1882, New York City, New York, USA - **Died:** 12 April 1959 - **Active:** 1929–1955 - **Also known as:** James Austin Gleason, Jimmy Gleason - **Titles on Fi1m:** 4: 3 acting, 1 writing - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Average Fi1m score:** 81, as actor, over 3 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1920s 60 (1), 1940s 76 (2), 1950s 91 (1) - **Fi1m against the critics:** 81 to 78 across 3 titles - **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60 - **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second - **Genres:** Comedy 2, Drama 2, Fantasy 2, Romance 2, Crime 1, Thriller 1 - **Screen time:** 5 hours of reviewed films - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gleason, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q726398, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0322299/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/30537 ## Streaming the US now - **The Criterion Channel:** [*The Night of the Hunter*](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) (91) - **The Roku Channel:** [*Here Comes Mr. Jordan*](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) (77) - **Pluto TV:** [*The Bishop's Wife*](https://film.one/film/the-bishops-wife.md) (74) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on James Gleason > A balding, craggy-voiced New Yorker who spent thirty years playing managers, editors and drivers who talk tough and give in, James Gleason was a listener before he was anything else. Watch him hear something impossible and decide, slowly, to believe it. Watch what James Gleason does when someone tells him something he cannot believe. He does not react; he hears it, lets it sit, and then it lands, a beat late, on a face built for exactly this. In *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941) he is Max Corkle, a boxing manager who has cremated his own fighter and is now being asked to accept that the millionaire in front of him is Joe, back from the dead, and then to hold conversations with an armchair in which Claude Rains is invisibly sitting. Gleason takes it in stages, disbelief, panic, drink and finally a sort of exhausted belief, and never once winks at us. When Joe proves who he is by playing the saxophone, Gleason listens like a man hearing a ghost, and we laughed out loud, more than once, because he was so plainly not trying to make us. He came to that face by way of the typewriter. Gleason began in the theatre as an actor and a playwright, wrote dialogue for *The Broadway Melody* (1929) and took a small part in it, and by the end of the twenties had settled into the character work he would do for the next three decades. The parts were managers, editors and drivers, tough talkers from New York who softened in the last reel. He played the hardboiled editor Henry Connell in Frank Capra's *Meet John Doe* (1941), Lt. Rooney in *Arsenic and Old Lace* (1944), and ran the Higgins Family comedies from 1938 to 1940 with his wife Lucile and son Russell alongside him. His last role was in *The Last Hurrah* (1958). The reservation is the obvious one, and it is more the studios' doing than his. He was almost never the lead, and the type he was handed could have been played on autopilot by the fortieth time. It was not, and the reason is the writing he did first: Gleason spoke vernacular like a man who had put it on paper, so his cynics sound as if they mean the cynicism, which is why the softening costs something when it comes. In *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), which we rate as one of the strangest and best films fifties Hollywood made, he is Uncle Birdie Steptoe, the kind-hearted man in a picture full of Robert Mitchum's menace. Our review does not single him out, and we will not pretend the part is large. It is the film he is in that matters. Alexander Hall got the best of him by giving him the most ridiculous thing to believe and all the time he needed to believe it. If you want to see Gleason at work, start with *Here Comes Mr. Jordan*, and watch the armchair scenes twice. He spent thirty years being the man who has to be told, and the pictures were better for having someone in them who listened. ## Biography James Gleason (1882–1959) was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Born in New York City, he began his career in theatre with stock companies in California and Oregon, and appeared on Broadway in plays including several of his own. He served in the US Army during the First World War. Gleason made his film debut in the 1920s and became a prolific character actor in over 150 films, often in tough-talking roles. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Max Corkle in *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941). Other notable roles include Lt. Rooney in *Arsenic and Old Lace* (1944) and Uncle Birdie Steptoe in *The Night of the Hunter* (1955). He also wrote screenplays, including for *The Broadway Melody* (1929). He was married to actress Lucile Webster Gleason until her death in 1947; their son Russell Gleason was also an actor. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (4) ### Performed in (3) — the average rests on these - *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), Fi1m 91, as Uncle Birdie Steptoe — [page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) - *The Bishop's Wife* (1947), Fi1m 74, as Sylvester — [page](https://film.one/film/the-bishops-wife.md) - *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Fi1m 77, as Max Corkle — [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) ### Wrote (1) - *The Broadway Melody* (1929), Fi1m 60, as Music Publisher (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/the-broadway-melody.md) ## Complete filmography (147) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Last Hurrah* (1958), as Cuke Gillen - *Money, Women and Guns* (1958), as Henry Devers - *Once Upon a Horse...* (1958), as Postmaster - *Rock-a-Bye Baby* (1958), as Doc Simpkins - *Man or Gun* (1958), as Sheriff Jim Jackson - *No Time at All* (1958), as Dolph Grimes - *The Female Animal* (1958), as Tom Maloney - *Man in the Shadow* (1957), as Hank James - *Leave It to Beaver* (1957), series, as Pete - *Loving You* (1957), as Carl Meade - *Spring Reunion* (1957), as Collie - *Star in the Dust* (1956), as Orval Jones - *Screen Director's Playhouse* (1955), series, as Ed Shafer - *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), series, as Mr. Jorgy, Howard Fieldstone - *Cheyenne* (1955), series, Actor - *The Girl Rush* (1955), as Ether Ferguson - *The Night of the Hunter* (1955), as Uncle Birdie Steptoe — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md) - *The Millionaire* (1955), series, as Charles Hartford Simpson - *Climax!* (1954), series, as Reverend Mr. McCarkle - *Suddenly* (1954), as Peter 'Pop' Benson - *Hollywood Thrill-Makers* (1954), as Risky Russell - *Forever Female* (1953), as Eddie Woods - *Cavalcade of America* (1952), series, as Noah Larkin - *What Price Glory* (1952), as General Cokely - *The Story of Will Rogers* (1952), as Bert Lynn - *We're Not Married!* (1952), as Duffy - *I'll See You in My Dreams* (1951), as Fred Townsend - *Come Fill the Cup* (1951), as Charley Dolan - *Triple Cross* (1951), as Knobby Walsh - *Two Gals and a Guy* (1951), as Max Howard - *Racket Squad* (1951), series, Actor - *Joe Palooka in the Squared Circle* (1950), as Knobby Walsh - *The Jackpot* (1950), as Harry Summers - *Riding High* (1950), as Racing Secretary - *The Yellow Cab Man* (1950), as Mickey Corkins - *Key to the City* (1950), as Sergeant Hogan - *Miss Grant Takes Richmond* (1949), as Timothy Gleason - *Take One False Step* (1949), as Captain Gledhill - *The Life of Riley* (1949), as Gillis - *Bad Boy* (1949), as Chief - *When My Baby Smiles at Me* (1948), as Lefty Moore - *The Return of October* (1948), as Uncle Willie Ramsey - *The Dude Goes West* (1948), as Sam Briggs - *Smart Woman* (1948), as Sam Corkle - *Tycoon* (1947), as Pop Mathews - *The Bishop's Wife* (1947), as Sylvester — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/the-bishops-wife.md) - *Down to Earth* (1947), as Max Corkle - *The Homestretch* (1947), as Doc Kilborne - *Lady Luck* (1946), as Sacramento Sam - *Home Sweet Homicide* (1946), as Sgt. O'Hare - *The Well Groomed Bride* (1946), as Captain Hornby - *The Hoodlum Saint* (1946), as Snarp - *Captain Eddie* (1945), as Tom Clark - *The Clock* (1945), as Al Henry - *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn* (1945), as McGarrity - *This Man's Navy* (1945), as Jimmy Shannon - *The Keys of the Kingdom* (1944), as Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fiske - *Arsenic and Old Lace* (1944), as Lt. Rooney - *Once Upon a Time* (1944), as Moke McGillicuddy - *A Guy Named Joe* (1944), as “Nails” Kilpatrick - *Crash Dive* (1943), as Chief Mike 'Mac' McDonnell - *Manila Calling* (1942), as Tim O'Rourke - *Tales of Manhattan* (1942), as Father Joe - *Footlight Serenade* (1942), as Bruce McKay - *The Falcon Takes Over* (1942), as Inspector Mike O'Hara - *My Gal Sal* (1942), as Pat Hawley - *A Date with the Falcon* (1942), as Inspector Michael 'Mike' O'Hara - *Hay Foot* (1942), as Colonel J. A. Barkley - *Babes on Broadway* (1941), as Thornton Reed - *Nine Lives Are Not Enough* (1941), as Sergeant Daniels - *Tanks a Million* (1941), as Col. 'Spitfire' Barkley - *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), as Max Corkle — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) - *Affectionately Yours* (1941), as 'Chet' Phillips - *Meet John Doe* (1941), as Henry Connell - *Earl of Puddlestone* (1940), as Joe Higgins - *Grandpa Goes To Town* (1940), as Joe Higgins - *Money To Burn* (1939), as Joe Higgins - *The Covered Trailer* (1939), as Joe Higgins - *On Your Toes* (1939), as Phil Dolan Sr. - *Should Husbands Work?* (1939), as Joe Higgins - *My Wife's Relatives* (1939), as Joe Higgins - *Army Girl* (1938), as Hennessy - *Screen Snapshots Series 17, No. 12* (1938), as James Gleason - *The Higgins Family* (1938), as Joe Higgins - *Manhattan Merry-Go-Round* (1937), as Danny The Duck - *Forty Naughty Girls* (1937), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *The Plot Thickens* (1936), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *The Big Game* (1936), as George Scott - *Don't Turn 'em Loose* (1936), as Detective Daniels - *Yours for the Asking* (1936), as Saratoga - *The Ex-Mrs. Bradford* (1936), as Inspector Corrigan - *Murder on a Bridle Path* (1936), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *We're Only Human* (1935), as Detective Danny Walsh - *Hot Tip* (1935), as Jimmy McGill · Director - *Murder in the Fleet* (1935), as Additional Writing - *West Point of the Air* (1935), as Joe 'Bags' - *Murder on a Honeymoon* (1935), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *Helldorado* (1935), as Sam Barnes - *Murder on the Blackboard* (1934), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *Change of Heart* (1934), as Hot Dog Vendor (uncredited) · Screenplay - *Search for Beauty* (1934), as Dan Healy - *The Meanest Gal in Town* (1934), as Duke Slater - *Hoopla* (1933), as Jerry - *The Bowery* (1933), Screenplay - *Orders Is Orders* (1933), as Ed Waggermeyer · Screenplay - *Clear All Wires!* (1933), as Lefty Williams - *The Billion Dollar Scandal* (1933), as "Ratsy" Harris - *The Penguin Pool Murder* (1932), as Police Insp. Oscar Piper - *The Devil Is Driving* (1932), as 'Beef' Evans - *Always Kickin'* (1932), Director - *Yoo-Hoo* (1932), as Jimmy Gleason - *The All-American* (1932), as Chick Knipe - *The Crooked Circle* (1932), as Arthur Crimmer - *Off His Base* (1932), as Picture in Opening Credits · Director - *Blondie of the Follies* (1932), as Pa McClune - *Lady and Gent* (1932), as Pin Streaver - *High Hats and Low Brows* (1932), as Danny Ruff - *Fast Companions* (1932), as Silk Henley - *Rule 'Em and Weep* (1932), as Spike Mc Gorey - *Suicide Fleet* (1931), as Skeets - *The Big Gamble* (1931), as Fred 'Squint' Dugan - *Sweepstakes* (1931), as Sleepy Jones - *A Free Soul* (1931), as Eddie - *It's a Wise Child* (1931), as Cool Kelly - *Beyond Victory* (1931), as Jim Mobley · Writer - *Three Hollywood Girls* (1931), Writer - *Big Money* (1930), as Tom - *Her Man* (1930), as Steve - *What a Widow!* (1930), Screenplay, Adaptation - *Rain or Shine* (1930), Writer - *The Matrimonial Bed* (1930), as Gustave Corton - *The Fall Guy* (1930), Writer - *Dumb-bells in Ermine* (1930), as Mike · Writer - *Mammy* (1930), Theatre Play - *Swellhead* (1930), as Johnny Trump · Dialogue - *Puttin' on the Ritz* (1930), as James 'Jimmy' Tierney · Dialogue - *Don't Believe It* (1930), as Jimmy - *His First Command* (1929), Screenplay, Story - *The Shannons of Broadway* (1929), as Mickey Shannon · Writer - *Oh, Yeah!* (1929), as Dusty - *Fairways and Foul* (1929), as Husband - *The Flying Fool* (1929), Additional Dialogue - *High Voltage* (1929), Dialogue, Screenplay - *Meet the Missus* (1929), as Bert La Motte - *The Broadway Melody* (1929), as Music Publisher (uncredited) · Dialogue — Fi1m 60, [page](https://film.one/film/the-broadway-melody.md) - *The Count of Ten* (1928), as Johnny's Manager - *Polly of the Follies* (1922), as Paul Gordon ## Gallery - ![James Gleason](https://film.one/media/person/95268/gallery-97022acae5fe.jpg) James Gleason — Trailer screenshot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/James_Gleason_in_Meet_John_Doe_trailer.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![American actor James Gleason (1928)](https://film.one/media/person/95268/gallery-6154aa770c59.jpg) American actor James Gleason (1928) — Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/James_Gleason_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![James Gleason](https://film.one/media/person/95268/gallery-cf69670d9ca4.jpg) James Gleason — Image via TMDB - ![James Gleason](https://film.one/media/person/95268/gallery-513f63352805.jpg) James Gleason — Image via TMDB ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1942: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/james-gleason