I always wanted to do a long run, fascinated by the notion
of playing a character at different dilemmas & dramas over years or
decades. I was happy for the experience & the money the few times I was in
a play that lasted a while. I once had a very showy role in a theatre event
that ran for 18 months. I would have been deeply grateful for a role in a
long-running TV soap operas. James Mitchell was one of them. He enjoyed playing
the patriarch- Palmer Cortlandt on All My Children from 1979 to 2008. The role
came at the right time in his career. At 59, his dancing days were done &
his film acting had not really happened.
From Stars In My Crown with Amanda Blake (who would die from HIV in 1989)
Fans of All My Children were probably not aware that the
debonair, silver haired, svelte & handsome, Mitchell had been a leading
dancer for many years, particularly associated with the celebrated choreographer
Agnes de Mille. De Mille: “Mitchell had probably the strongest arms in the
business, & the adagio style developed by him & his partners has become
since a valued addition to ballet vocabulary".
Mitchel was born on a fruit farm near Sacramento. He was
3 years old his mother left with his 2 younger siblings. His farmer father,
feeling unable to bring up his son alone, gave him up to vaudevillian foster
parents. Mitchell appeared on stage as part of their act.
At 17, Mitchell moved to LA, where he studied at City
College. At the same time, he was introduced to modern dance at the school of
the famed teacher/choreographer Lester Horton. Mitchell soon joined Horton's Dance
Theatre of Los Angeles & was one of the Lester Horton Dancers who appeared
in a few Hollywood musicals in the early 1940s.
My buddy- Professor Walter Kennedy danced with The Bella
Lewizky Company for decades, but 40 years earlier, Mitchell was featured in a
South Sea Island dance duet with Bella Lewitzky in White Savage (1943), a camp
piece starring Maria Montez.
In 1944, Mitchell began his long partnership with De
Mille when she cast him as a dancer in the Broadway musical Bloomer Girl
starring my friend- Celeste Holm. He also appeared in the original Broadway
productions of Brigadoon (1947) & Paint Your Wagon (1951), choreographed by
De Mille.
Mitchell received non-dancing supporting roles in some
good movies: In Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory (1949), he played outlaw Joel
McCrea's nasty sidekick; again with McCrea, he was in Stars in My Crown (1950),
& in a pair of Anthony Mann dramas, as an indian in Border Incident (1949),
& a Mexican in Devil's Doorway (1950).
Mitchell continued in a small roles in a few film
musicals in which he could display his dancing skills: The Toast of New Orleans
(1950), he has a zany duet with Rita Moreno, & an erotic dance with Cyd
Charisse in Deep in My Heart (1954). The
next year, he was reunited with De Mille on the movie version of Oklahoma! for
the 20-minute dream ballet sequence.
Ironically, Mitchell did not dance in the best musical in
which he appeared- Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953), he has the
thankless role of Charisse's manager, boyfriend & choreographer, an
experience he disliked so much he refused to see the film. In The Band Wagon he
abandons Charisse when she chooses Broadway over ballet. Mitchell himself moved
to Broadway with roles in Carnival! (1961), & Mack & Mabel (1974). In 1979,
Mitchell settled into the long role of Palmer Cortlandt.
Mitchell's partner for 33+ years was costume designer
Albert Wolsky. The couple met on the set of The Turning Point, a film set in
the ballet world, in1977. Wolosky:
“He adored playing mean”. Wolsky
is a 2-time Academy Award winning costume designer, for All That Jazz &
Bugsy. Most recently he was nominated for his work on the Julie Taymor film-
Across the Universe.
Mitchell’s character on All My Children was one of the
first to accept Erica Kane's daughter Bianca when she came out as a lesbian. An
earlier story line on the show had Cortlandt befriending a gay teen.
My Buddy- Walter knew Mitchell & may wish to weigh
in. Mitchell died in 2010, he would have been 23 today, or 92, depending on how you look at it. He
had a good run. Let’s toast him today.
