2009

James Whitmore, the veteran Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor who brought American icons Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt to life in one-man shows, died today. He was 87.

Whitmore died of lung cancer at his home in Malibu, said his son, Steve. He was diagnosed with the disease a week before Thanksgiving.

"He was surrounded by what he considered to be the most important in his life, which was his family," Steve said. "He was loved and admired for his work as an actor, but he was loved and admired for being a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather to all those who knew him and loved him."

A stocky World War II Marine Corps veteran who bore a resemblance to actor Spencer Tracy and shared Tracy's down-to-earth quality, Whitmore earned early acclaim as an actor.

In 1948, he won a Tony Award for outstanding performance by a newcomer in the role of an amusingly cynical Army Air Forces sergeant in the Broadway production of "Command Decision."Whitmore's Broadway success brought him to Hollywood, where he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor in his second movie, the hit 1949 World War II drama "Battleground," in which he played a tobacco-chewing, battle-weary Army sergeant.

Supporting roles and occasional leads in some 50 movies followed over the next 50-plus years, including "The Asphalt Jungle," "Them!," "Kiss Me Kate," "Battle Cry," "Oklahoma!," "Black Like Me," "Planet of the Apes," "Tora! Tora! Tora!," "The Serpent's Egg," "Nuts," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Majestic."A frequent guest actor on television, Whitmore also starred in three series: the 1960-62 legal drama "The Law and Mr. Jones"; the 1969 detective drama "My Friend Tony"; and the 1972-74 hospital sit-com "Temperatures Rising" (although he left after a year, he later said, "because it was just a series of jokes").

In 2000, Whitmore won an Emmy Award as outstanding guest actor in a drama series for "The Practice," and he received a 2003 Emmy nomination in the same category for "Mister Sterling."An avid flower and vegetable gardener, Whitmore also was known to TV viewers as the longtime commercial pitchman for Miracle-Gro garden products.

As an actor, he once said, the income from doing commercials "gives you the latitude so you don't have to worry about having your kids take care of you."

Whitmore often said he found acting in films and television boring because of the long waits between scenes; his passion was for the theater, and he continued to act on stage throughout his long career.

"I've been very, very lucky," he said in a 2003 interview with the Nashville Tennessean. "The stage is human beings sharing something together -- flesh and blood together -- and the others are mechanical and shadows on the screen."

Although he starred in productions of plays such as "Our Town," "Inherit the Wind" and "Death of a Salesman," Whitmore was best known for his three one-man shows: as Truman in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," as Roosevelt in "Bully" and as Rogers in "Will Rogers' U.S.A."

The 1975 film of his performance in "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" earned Whitmore a best actor Oscar nomination.

But the one-man-show character he said he "always felt most comfortable with" was Rogers."He was wise with a sense of humor, and that's an unbeatable combination," Whitmore told the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader in 2003.

He was initially resistant to the idea of playing the gum-chewing, lariat-twirling humorist -- his first one-man show -- when adapter-director Paul Shyre brought "Will Rogers' U.S.A." to him in 1969."I didn't think I could conceivably carry an evening by myself. I had difficulty holding the attention of my family," Whitmore recalled in a 1995 interview with The Times.

But any qualms he had disappeared when the show premiered in a small theater in Webster Groves, Mo., in January 1970. "I realized immediately that I was in the presence of an extraordinary man," Whitmore told The Times. "I didn't realize that until I heard the response of other human beings to him."

Whitmore ultimately had about eight hours of Rogers' various comments about the topics of the day memorized, changing the show each time he did it."I tried to use whatever seemed to be of interest to the folks in the audience that day," he told the Tulsa World in 2001. "I took the news from today's newspaper but didn't change what Will Rogers said. It's amazing how little things have changed since Will was about."Whitmore completed 30 years of on-and-off touring as Rogers at Ford's Theatre in Washington in 2000, and his costume is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Born in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 1, 1921, Whitmore later moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he attended public schools until his senior year of high school, when he attended the Choate School in Wallingford, Conn., on a football scholarship.A pre-law major on an athletic scholarship at Yale University, he became a protege of one of the assistant football coaches -- future U.S. President Gerald R. Ford -- but had to quit playing after suffering two knee injuries.

While at Yale, Whitmore helped launch the campus radio station."My scholarships dried up when my knees went," he told the Tennessean in 2003. "I was able to stay in school with a nightly sports show, 'Jim Whitmore Speaks,' with interviews and sports news. I made 40 bucks a week."Yale was all male then, except for the gals in graduate school. I was going with one of them, and she was doing plays. They pressed me into service, and I kind of liked it."With World War II underway, Whitmore joined the Marines during his senior year in 1942 and served in the South Pacific. After his discharge in 1946, he returned to the Pacific with the USO to entertain the troops.Moving to New York City, he used the GI Bill to study acting at the American Theatre Wing.

In 1947, he married his first wife, Nancy Mygatt, with whom he had three children. They were divorced after 24 years. After Whitmore's second marriage in the 1970s, to actress Audra Lindley, he and his first wife were remarried but divorced after two years Whitmore, who was an early student at the Actors Studio in New York in the late '40s, taught an acting workshop after moving to Hollywood. Among his students in the early '50s was young James Dean, whom Whitmore advised to go to New York."I owe a lot to Whitmore," Dean told Seventeen magazine in 1955. "One thing he said helped more than anything. He told me I didn't know the difference between acting as a soft job and acting as a difficult art."

For his part, Whitmore remained modest about his own acting talent.Prior to accepting an award recognizing his long career from the Palm Beach International Film Festival in 2002, he told the Palm Beach Post: "I never thought I was good. I've touched the hem of the garment a few times but never grabbed it full-hand."In addition to his son Steve, Whitmore is survived by his third wife, Noreen; his sons James Jr. and Dan; eight grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren.Services are pending.http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-james-whitmore7-2009feb07,0,1015401.story

It's being reported that Phil Carey, 83, who for many years portrayed the patriarch of the Buchanan family on "One Life to Live" has died. Carey had been fighting lung cancer for several years and had retired from the soap opera, although he made occasional appearances, including one in recent weeks.

A journeyman actor, Carey amassed numerous credits in movies supporting such major stars as John Wayne ("Operation Pacific"), Joan Crawford ("This Woman Is Dangerous"), Doris Day ("Calamity Jane"), Gary Cooper ("Springfield Rifle"), and James Cagney and Jack Lemmon ("Mister Roberts"). He also appeared in numerous television episodes, including a memorable turn as one of Archie Bunker's pals who reveals he's gay in "All in the Family".

Carey moved to working in daytime and was featured in "Bright Promise" before landing the long-running role as Asa Buchanan on "One Life to Live". In one of life's ironic turns, Clint Ritchie, who portrayed his son Clint (and was only 13 years younger), died recently. IMDB for Philip Carey: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0137023(posted at Alt. obits)