Known for Acting
James Olson (October 8, 1930 – April 17, 2022) was an American actor. From 1952 until 1954, he was a military policeman in the United States Army. He performed stage work in and around Chicago before his 1956 film debut in The Sharkfighters. His Broadway credits include Of Love Remembered (1967), Slapstick Tragedy (1966), The Three Sisters (1964), The Chinese Prime Minister (1964), Romulus (1962), J.B. (1958), The Sin of Pat Muldoon (1957), and The Young and Beautiful (1955). He starred alongside Joanne Woodward in the Academy Award nominee for Best Picture Rachel, Rachel in 1968. He made numerous stage, feature film, and TV appearances from the mid-1950s until 1990, when he retired. On television, Olson portrayed Mickey Mantle in The Life of Mickey Mantle. His other TV appearances included guest roles on scores of shows, including episodes of Kraft Television Theatre; Ironside; Murder, She Wrote; Little House on the Prairie; Hawaii Five-O; Battlestar Galactica; Lou Grant; The Bionic Woman; Wonder Woman; Mannix; Bonanza; Have Gun-Will Travel; Marcus Welby, M.D.; Police Woman; Barnaby Jones; The New Land; Columbo; Maude; The Virginian; The Streets of San Francisco; and Cannon. Description above from the Wikipedia article James Olson (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born
October 8, 1930
Died
April 17, 2022 (age 91)
Birthplace
Evanston, Illinois, USA
Filmography
36 films, 37 shows


Rachel River
1989 · 1h 25m
country: United States
A divorced radio personality in a small Minnesota town returns to her roots and investigates the life of a reclusive, recently deceased woman.


One Police Plaza
1986 · 1h 32m
country: Canada
A veteran New York City Police Lieutenant's investigation of a woman's murder uncovers corruption in high places.


North Beach and Rawhide
1985 · 2h
country: United States
"Boys Town" drama about a man named Rawhide MacGregor, a one-time ex-convict who runs a cattle ranch as a correctional facility for urban juvenile delinquents where he tries through a variety of means and choirs to redeem them from their trouble-making ways.


Commando
1985 · 1h 30m
country: United States
John Matrix, the former leader of a special commando strike force that always got the toughest jobs done, is forced back into action when his young daughter is kidnapped. To find her, Matrix has to fight his way through an array of punks, killers, one of his former commandos, and a fully equipped private army. With the help of a feisty stewardess and an old friend, Matrix has only a few hours to overcome his greatest challenge: finding his daughter before she's killed.


The Parade
1984 · 2h
country: United States
When her estranged, drifter husband Matt returns after spending seven years in prison to ask her to let him be a part of her life again, Rachel Kirby's life is thrown into turmoil, which also affects her teenage daughter and mother.


Cave-In!
1983 · 1h 37m
country: United States
A party of tourists -- including a state senator, a park ranger who was her one-time lover, a cantankerous professor, and an escaped convict -- are trapped deep inside the caverns of an unnamed national park, rescued briefly, and then caught in a second cave-in.


Amityville II: The Possession
1982 · 1h 44m
country: Mexico
Anthony and Dolores Montelli, along with their four children, move into their dream house in Amityville and are immediately plagued by a string of paranormal experiences. When the abusive Anthony wrongly places the blame on the children, Dolores recruits a local Catholic priest to exorcise the house.


Ragtime
1981 · 2h 35m
country: United States
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.


The Silent Lovers
1980 · 1h 40m
country: United States
The story of the ill-fated romance between Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.


Visions of Christmas Past
1979 · 1h 35m
country: Unknown
A 95-minute TV movie spin-off from the short-lived TV series Shirley (1979), starring Shirley Jones. Shirley is caught up in memories of her late husband as she sets off in a snow storm to buy a Christmas tree for her family.


No Prince for My Cinderella
1978 · 1h 38m
country: Unknown
Tv pilot of the show The Runaways. A friend of McKay’s who is a cop asks for his help when his daughter is missing. It turns out she has split personalities.


The Mafu Cage
1978 · 1h 42m
country: United States
Two strange sisters live in a crumbling mansion, where they keep a pet ape, which belonged to their late father, locked in a cage. While one of the sisters seems to be keeping her head on straight, as it were, the other appears to be sinking further and further into barbarism and insanity.


The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer
1977 · 1h 14m
country: United States
General Custer is on trial for the deaths of his men at the Battle of Little Bighorn.


The Spell
1977 · 1h 26m
country: United States
A distraught mother must cope with her embittered daughter who has the ability to cause "accidents" to happen.


Law and Order
1976 · 2h 30m
country: United States
Story follows three generations of a family in the New York City Police Department.


Strange New World
1975 · 1h 40m
country: United States
In the near future, a group of scientists living in a space ship wake up from a hibernation state and come back to an apocalyptic Earth.


Man on the Outside
1975 · 1h 50m
country: United States
A retired police captain storms angrily out of retirement when his son is shot down before his eyes and his grandson is kidnapped by a syndicate killer in this pilot for Lorne Greene's brief "Griff" series, which went off the air 18 months before this film was aired.


Someone I Touched
1975 · 1h 14m
country: United States
A woman learns that her husband has been unfaithful and that she has acquired a venereal disease. Then she learns that, after years of trying, she is finally pregnant


The Family Nobody Wanted
1975 · 1h 30m
country: United States
A minister and his wife take in poor and troubled children that nobody else wants and soon they find themselves with a family of a dozen kids.


The Sex Symbol
1974 · 1h 14m
country: United States
A thinly-disguised version of the life of Marilyn Monroe, detailing her ups and downs in life and how her erratic behavior contributed to her deteriorating career.


A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
1974 · 1h 14m
country: United States
The story of a family living in a New York City slum in 1912, headed by a loving but alcoholic father and a strong-willed mother.


Manhunter
1974 · 1h 14m
country: United States
Pilot movie for the short-lived TV series set in the 1930's about a World War I ex-marine-turned-bounty-hunter, named Dave Barrett, who goes after two Bonnie-and-Clyde style bank robbers who murdered his former girlfriend.
Legend in Granite
Legend in Granite
1973 · 48m
country: United States
Follows Vince Lombardi's football career from one of Fordham University's legendary "Seven Blocks of Granite" to one of American football's greatest professional coaches.


Incident on a Dark Street
1973 · 1h 36m
country: United States
A small-time hood is murdered just as he is about to blow the whistle on an organized crime ring.


The Groundstar Conspiracy
1972 · 1h 35m
country: Canada
A break-in and sabotage attempt occurs at a top secret research institute and the culprit is cornered and captured. The problem is that he's been badly injured and claims to have lost his memory entirely. A cat-and-mouse game ensues between investigator Tuxan, the mystery intruder Welles and the people who sent him on the mission.


Paper Man
1971 · 1h 15m
country: United States
A prank that starts with a group of college students creating a fictitious person so they can get a credit card develops into a plot that leaves three of them dead.


Wild Rovers
1971 · 2h 16m
country: United States
Ross Bodine and Frank Post are cowhands on Walt Buckman's R-Bar-R ranch. Bodine is older and broods a bit about how he will get along when he's too old to cowboy. Post is young and rambunctious and ambitious for a better life than wrangling cows. When one of their fellow cowboys is killed in a corral accident, Post suggests a way into a better life for himself and his friend: robbing a bank. Bodine reluctantly joins in the plan and the two contrive to rob the local bank. They make good their escape initially, but Walt Buckman and his two sons, John and Paul, are incensed at this betrayal by their own trusted employees. John and Paul set out to bring Bodine and Post to justice.


The Andromeda Strain
1971 · 2h 11m
country: United States
When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scrambles to a secure laboratory and tries first to isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form, unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.


Crescendo
1970 · 1h 36m
country: United Kingdom
An innocent project transforms into a perilous nightmare when researcher Susan Roberts arrives in France in search of information on a deceased composer.


Moon Zero Two
1969 · 1h 41m
country: United Kingdom
On the Moon in the year 2021, a former-astronaut-turned-salvager helps a millionaire space industrialist capture a 6000-ton sapphire asteroid, while also assisting a woman in finding her missing miner/prospector brother


The Stalking Moon
1968 · 1h 49m
country: United States
While moving a group of Apaches to a Native American reservation in Arizona, an American scout named Sam Varner is surprised to find a white woman, Sarah Carver, living with the tribe. When Sam learns that she was taken captive by an Indian named Salvaje ten years ago, he attempts to escort Sarah and her half-Native American son to his home in New Mexico. However, it soon becomes clear that Salvaje is hot on their trail.


Rachel, Rachel
1968 · 1h 41m
country: United States
Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.


An Enemy of the People
1966 · 1h 52m
country: United States
Set in a Norwegian hamlet, an idealistic physician discovers that the town's hot springs are contaminated. But with the community relying on the spa for tourist dollars, his warning to the powers-that-be falls on deaf ears.


The Three Sisters
1966 · 2h 48m
country: United States
In a small Russian town at the turn of the century, three sisters and their brother live but dream daily of their return to their former home in Moscow, where life is charming and stimulating meaningful. But for now they exist in a malaise of dissatisfaction. Soldiers from the local military post provide them some companionship and society, but nothing can suffice to replace Moscow in their hopes. Andrei marries a provincial girl, Natasha, and begins to settle into a life of much less meaning than he had hoped. Natasha begins to run the family her way. Masha, though married, yearns for the sophisticated life and begins a dalliance with Vershinin, an army officer with a sick and suicidal wife. Even Irina, the freshest, most optimistic of the sisters, begins to waver in her dreams until, finally, tragedy strikes.


The Strange One
1957 · 1h 40m
country: United States
A military school student develops a destructive power over his fellow cadets.


The Sharkfighters
1956 · 1h 13m
country: United States
Landing on a small island not far from Havana, Cuba, Lt. Cmdr. Ben Staves joins a Navy scientific project engaged in finding an effective shark repellent to help save the lives of WWII military personnel stranded in shark-infested waters. His zeal for completing the project as fast as possible is explained by his having lost a large percentage of his crew to sharks when his ship was sunk by the Japanese. Against the advice of the others on the project, Staves demands that the new repellent be tested on a live subject surrounded by hungry sharks and will allow no one but himself to be the test subject!