CLIFTON JAMES

(29 May 1921 - 15 April 2017)

Although he had one hundred credits to his name, the US actor may well be remembered best for his appearances as Sheriff Pepper in two 007 pictures, Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun in which he played a genial and bluff good old Southern boy. However, he began his acting career as a graduate of the Actors Studio and from 1954 was a regular on television. He also notched up a considerable collection of character parts in many notable films, beginning with Jack Garfein’s The Strange One in 1957 and Something Wild in 1961. He graced Blake Edwards’ Experiment in Terror (Grip of Fear in the UK) and was in David and Lisa, Invitation to a Gunfighter, The Chase, with Paul Newman in both Cool Hand Luke and WUSA, and in Will Penny, The Reivers, Kid Blue, The Iceman Cometh, The Last Detail and Juggernaut. With Gene Wilder in Silver Streak he played another sheriff, as he also did in Superman II. He was in Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and John Sayles’s Lone Star and Sunshine State. Old Soldiers was in pre-production when he died.

MICHAEL DARVELL