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James Robertson Justice is a Actor British born on 15 june 1907

James Robertson Justice

James Robertson Justice
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Birth name James Norval Harald Justice
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 15 june 1907
Death 2 july 1975 (at 68 years) at Romsey (United-kingdom)

James Robertson Justice (born James Norval Harald Justice; 15 June 1907 – 2 July 1975) was a popular British character actor in British films of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.

Biography

The son of an Aberdeen-born geologist and named after his father, James Justice was born in Lee, a suburb of Lewisham in South London, in 1907. Educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, Justice studied science at University College, London, but left after a year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn, where he again left after just a year. He spoke many languages (possibly up to 20) including Spanish, French, Greek, Danish, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch and Gaelic.




After university
Justice returned to the UK in 1927, and became a journalist with Reuters in London, alongside Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. After a year he emigrated to Canada, where he worked as an insurance salesman, taught English at a boys' school, became a lumberjack and mined for gold. He came back to England penniless, working his passage on a Dutch freighter.

On his return to Britain he served as secretary of the British Ice Hockey Association in the early 1930s and managed the national team at the 1932 European Championships in Berlin to a seventh-place finish. He combined his administrative duties in 1931–32 with a season as goaltender with the London Lions.

Justice was entered in a Wolseley Hornet Special in the JCC Thousand Mile Race at Brooklands on 3 and 4 May 1932. The car was unplaced. The following year a "J. Justice (J.A.P. Special)" competed in the Brighton Speed Trials: "Justice's machine "Tallulah" noisily expired before the end of the course, and was pushed back to the start by way of the arcade under the terrace." The Brighton event was won by Whitney Straight and according to Denis Jenkinson: "Flitting round the periphery of the team was James Robertson-Justice." In February 1934 Straight took delivery of a new Maserati: "Jimmy Justice went off to Italy to collect the first car which was 8CM number 3011." Motor Sport reported in 1963: "We remember him at Lewes with a G.N. and in a Relay Race with a Wolseley Hornet."

Justice left Britain again to become a policeman for the League of Nations in the Territory of the Saar Basin (a region of Germany occupied and governed by France and Germany under a League of Nations mandate originating in the Treaty of Versailles). After the Nazis came to power, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. It was here that he first grew his signature trademark bushy beard, which he retained throughout his career. On return to Britain, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, but after sustaining an injury in 1943 (thought to be shrapnel from a German shell), he was pensioned off.


Love of Scotland
He married nurse Dillys Hayden (1914–1984) in Chelsea in 1941, and she gave birth to his son James. On his return from the war he reinvented himself with stronger Scottish roots. Feeling strongly about his Scottish ancestry, he claimed to have been born in 1905 under a distillery on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. He unsuccessfully contested the North Angus and Mearns constituency for the Labour Party in the 1950 general election.


Acting career
Justice took up acting after joining the Players' Club in London. The club, under the chairmanship of Leonard Sachs who was latterly chairman of BBC's television's The Good Old Days, would stage Victorian music hall nights. Standing in for Sachs one night, he was recommended for the film For Those In Peril in the summer of 1944.

As an actor, with his domineering personality, bulky physique, (he played rugby for Beckenham RFC First XV in the 1924/5 season alongside Johnnie Cradock who would become the partner of 1950's TV chef Fanny) and rich, booming voice, he was soon established as a major supporting player in British comedy films. His first leading role was as headmaster in the film Vice Versa, written and directed by Peter Ustinov, who cast him partly because he'd been "a collaborator of my father's at Reuters." Justice was the demanding surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt in the "Doctor" series of films of the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with Doctor in the House in 1954, playing a role for which he is possibly best remembered. In his films he was sometimes credited as Seamus Mòr na Feusag (Scottish Gaelic, translation: Big James with the Beard), James R. Justice, James Robertson or James Robertson-Justice.

On 31 August 1957, he helped launch the TV station Scottish Television, hosting the channel's first show, This is Scotland. From 1957 to 1960, and again from 1963 to 1966, he was Rector of the University of Edinburgh. In the 1961 war film The Guns of Navarone, Robertson-Justice had a co-starring role as well as narrating the story.

He appeared in four films with Navarone co-star Gregory Peck, including Captain Horatio Hornblower, RN, and most notably, Moby Dick, in which Robertson-Justice played the one-armed sea captain also attacked by the white whale. In the film, Robertson-Justice's character tries to befriend Captain Ahab (played by Peck), but is amazed and repulsed by Ahab's obsessive pursuit of Moby Dick.


Later life
After a series of affairs and the drowning of his son in 1949 at his watermill home in Whitchurch, Hampshire, Justice separated from his wife; she eventually divorced him in 1968. He met actress Irene von Meyendorff in 1960 on the set of The Ambassadress (original German title, Die Botschafterin), and they remained together, eventually marrying in 1975 three days before he died.

Not long after completing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968, Justice suffered a severe stroke, which signalled the beginning of the end for his career. He suffered a further series of strokes, which left him unable to work, and he died penniless in 1975. His ashes were buried in a North Scotland moor near his former residence.

A biography called James Robertson Justice — What's The Bleeding Time? (named after a joke in the first Doctor film) was published by Tomahawk Press on 3 March 2008. It was written by James Hogg, Robert Sellers and Howard Watson.

Best films

The Guns of Navarone (1961)
(Actor)
Mayerling (1968)
(Actor)
The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952)
(Actor)
Storm Over the Nile (1955)
(Actor)

Usually with

Nicholas Phipps
Nicholas Phipps
(10 films)
Ralph Thomas
Ralph Thomas
(13 films)
Leslie Phillips
Leslie Phillips
(11 films)
Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
(3 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of James Robertson Justice (81 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Doctor in Trouble, 1h30
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy
Themes Medical-themed films
Actors Harry Secombe, Leslie Phillips, Robert Morley, Irene Handl, Angela Scoular, Joan Sims
Roles Sir Lancelot Spratt
Rating53% 2.6603452.6603452.6603452.6603452.660345
Renowned surgeon Sir Lancelot Sprat (James Robertson Justice) arranges a cruise for his patient, the famous television star Basil Beauchamp (Simon Dee). The captain of the ship is Lancelot Spratt's brother (Robert Morley).
Zeta One
Zeta One (1969)
, 1h22
Directed by George Maynard
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Science fiction, Comedy, Fantasy
Actors James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey, Anna Gaël, Dawn Addams, Valerie Leon, Brigitte Skay
Roles Maj. Bourdon
Rating38% 1.9194451.9194451.9194451.9194451.919445
Une race de femmes de la planète Angvia, dans une autre dimension, viennent sur terre pour kidnapper des femmes afin de repeupler leur planète.
Spirits of the Dead, 2h1
Directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, Federico Fellini
Origin France
Genres Drama, Fantastic, Horror
Themes Films about animals, Films about religion, Films about suicide, Transport films, Films about automobiles, Films about horses, Demons in film, Ghost films, Road movies, Mise en scène d'un mammifère
Actors Jane Fonda, Terence Stamp, Brigitte Bardot, Peter Fonda, Alain Delon, Serge Marquand
Roles Countess' Advisor (segment "Metzengerstein")
Rating63% 3.1987353.1987353.1987353.1987353.198735
Les étranges rapports d'amour que la comtesse Frederica, débauchée notoire, mais cavalière émérite, entretient avec un superbe étalon noir en qui elle voit la réincarnation de son vertueux cousin Wilhelm qui l'a dédaignée et dont elle se culpabilise de la disparition dans l'incendie de son écurie qu'elle a commandité par vengeance…
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 2h24
Directed by Ken Hughes, Brian W. Cook
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Science fiction, Comedy, Musical theatre, Fantasy, Adventure, Musical
Themes Monde imaginaire, Films about music and musicians, Transport films, Films about automobiles, Aviation films, Musical films, Road movies, Children's films
Actors Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Adrian Hall, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle
Roles Lord Scrumptious
Rating68% 3.4492453.4492453.4492453.4492453.449245
Set in the 1910s, the story opens with a montage of European Grand Prix races in which a particular car appears to win every race. In the final race, the car swerves to avoid a girl and a dog, loses control, crashes, and catches fire, bringing its racing career to an end. The car ends up in an old garage in rural England, where two children, Jeremy and Jemima Potts, have grown fond of it. They are told by a junkman that he intends to buy the car from the garage owner for scrap. The children (who live with their widowed father Caractacus Potts, an eccentric inventor, and his equally peculiar father) implore their father to buy the car before the junkman does, but he does not have the money. While playing truant, they meet Truly Scrumptious, a beautiful upper class woman with her own motorcar. She brings them home to report their truancy to their father. Truly shows interest in Caractacus' odd inventions, but he is affronted by her insistence that his children should be in school.
Mayerling
Mayerling (1968)
, 2h20
Directed by Terence Young, Bernard Farrel
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Historical, Romance
Themes Political films, Films about royalty
Actors Omar Sharif, Catherine Deneuve, James Mason, Ava Gardner, James Robertson Justice, Véronique Vendell
Roles Prince of Wales
Rating61% 3.051033.051033.051033.051033.05103
In the 1880s, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria (Sharif) clashes with his father, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (Mason) and his mother Empress Elisabeth (Gardner), over implementing progressive policies for their country. Rudolf soon feels he is a man born at the wrong time in a country that does not realize the need for social reform. The Prince of Wales (Robertson Justice), later to become Britain's King Edward VII, provides comic relief.
Two Weeks in September, 1h40
Directed by Serge Bourguignon
Origin France
Genres Drama, Romance
Actors Brigitte Bardot, Jean Rochefort, Laurent Terzieff, James Robertson Justice, Mike Sarne, Carole Lebel
Roles McClintock
Rating54% 2.7112052.7112052.7112052.7112052.711205
Model Cecile spends two weeks away from her older lover Philippe and is tempted by a younger man.
Doctor in Clover, 1h41
Directed by Ralph Thomas
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy
Themes Medical-themed films
Actors Leslie Phillips, Joan Sims, Fenella Fielding, Arthur Haynes, James Robertson Justice, Terry Scott
Roles Sir Lancelot Spratt
Rating57% 2.857672.857672.857672.857672.85767
The film is based at the (fictitious) St Swithin's Hospital, with Leslie Phillips as Dr Gaston Grimsdyke, an accident-prone doctor and cad, more interested in the nurses than the patients.
The Trygon Factor, 1h24
Directed by Cyril Frankel
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy-drama, Crime
Themes Heist films
Actors Stewart Granger, Susan Hampshire, Robert Morley, Cathleen Nesbitt, Brigitte Horney, Sophie Hardy
Roles Sir John (voice)
Rating58% 2.912942.912942.912942.912942.91294
A Scotland Yard inspector is called to investigate a series of unsolved robberies. Inspector Cooper-Smith (Stewart Granger) arrives at the country manor of a respectable English family. He discovers Livia Emberday (Cathleen Nesbitt), the mistress of the house, has turned to crime in order to bolster the family's flagging fortunes. With assistance from an order of bogus nuns, stolen goods end up in the warehouse of Hamlyn (Robert Morley), purportedly a respectable businessman.
Long Legs, Long Fingers
Directed by Alfred Vohrer
Origin German
Genres Comedy, Crime
Actors Senta Berger, Joachim Fuchsberger, Martin Held, James Robertson Justice, Alexander Engel, Lia Eibenschütz
Roles Sir Hammond
Rating63% 3.186383.186383.186383.186383.18638
Le baron Holberg est fier d'être le descendant d'une famille qui tient sa noblesse dans l'art du vol. Ses objets préférés sont les colliers des riches dames. Depuis la mort de sa femme, il dirige l'affaire avec sa fille Doris, à qui il a enseigné toutes les techniques pour voler les bijoux au cou de la victime de façon inaperçue. Lors d'une soirée mondaine, Doris fait la connaissance de Robert Hammond, un avocat de Londres, en tombe amoureuse et souhaite avoir une vie honnête. Le père ne veut pas de ce déshonneur et s'enfuit avec elle à Vienne, en lui prétextant être recherché par la police.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes, 2h13
Directed by Don Sharp, Ken Annakin
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Action, Adventure
Themes Sports films, Transport films, Aviation films, Children's films
Actors Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Terry-Thomas, Robert Morley, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Alberto Sordi
Roles Narrator
Rating69% 3.497493.497493.497493.497493.49749
A brief narration outlines man's first attempts to fly since the Stone Age due to inspiration by a bird's flight, seen with footage from the Silent Film Era, and man being represented by a "test pilot" (Red Skelton) encountering periodic misfortune in his attempts.
The Face of Fu Manchu, 1h29
Directed by Don Sharp
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Thriller, Action, Adventure, Horror, Crime
Actors Christopher Lee, Nigel Green, Howard Marion-Crawford, Tsai Chin, Karin Dor, James Robertson Justice
Roles Sir Charles
Rating58% 2.902992.902992.902992.902992.90299
A ghostly execution of world mastermind criminal Fu Manchu is witnessed by nemesis Nayland Smith. Back in England, however, it is increasingly apparent that Fu Manchu is still operating. Smith is quick to detect that the execution he witnessed was that of a double, an actor hypnotised into taking Fu Manchu's place. The villain is back in London, working from a secret base underneath the River Thames. He has kidnapped the esteemed Professor Muller, who holds the key to a potentially deadly solution from the seeds of a rare Tibetan flower.
Up from the Beach, 1h39
Directed by Robert Parrish
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War
Themes Political films
Actors Cliff Robertson, Irina Demick, Red Buttons, Marius Goring, Slim Pickens, James Robertson Justice
Roles British Beachmaster
Rating61% 3.0970653.0970653.0970653.0970653.097065
Following the Normandy landings at Omaha Beach, an American squad frees a group of French hostages but takes several casualties in an assault in Vierville-sur-Mer.