X-Nico

11 unusual facts about James Mason


Autobiography of a Princess

An Indian Princess (Madhur Jaffrey), long-divorced and living in self-enforced exile in 1970's London, spends time with her father's ex-tutor, Cyril Sahib (James Mason), watching film footage of Royal India and talking of a past world.

Autobiography of a Princess (1975) is a film by Merchant Ivory Productions (directed by James Ivory, written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and produced by Ismail Merchant), starring James Mason and Madhur Jaffrey.

Bigger Than Life

Bigger Than Life is an American DeLuxe Color CinemaScope film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone.

Schoolteacher and family man Ed Avery (James Mason), who has been suffering bouts of severe pain and even blackouts, is hospitalized with what's diagnosed as polyarteritis nodosa, a rare inflammation of the arteries.

Call for the Dead

It was directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Paul Dehn, and starred James Mason as Charles Dobbs, (le Carré had sold the use of the name George Smiley with the rights to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), Harry Andrews as Mendel, Simone Signoret as Elsa Fennan and Maximilian Schell as Dieter Frey.

Corseaux

James Mason owned a house and lived in Corseaux until the end of his life.

Geoffrey Gaunt

Gaunt was from a well-known textile family and screen star James Mason was a cousin.

Jacqueline Logan

In the segment of the documentary about DeMille's The King of Kings (1927), in which Logan appeared, narrator James Mason can be heard mentioning Logan's name, with the viewer expecting to see Logan talking about the film, but her interview was never broadcast and is not in any of the home video versions of the series.

Lady Katherine Ferrers

A 1945 film version with Margaret Lockwood in the lead role, and James Mason as Ralph Chaplin's alter ego Jerry Jackson, broke all British box office records for the time.

Leonard Gershe

He wrote the lyrics for the "Born in a Trunk" sequence from the Judy Garland/James Mason musical A Star Is Born.

Robert Marasco

Following a less successful London production at the Queen's Theatre in 1971, the play was made into a film in 1972; Sidney Lumet directed, and the cast included James Mason, Robert Preston, and Beau Bridges.


A Life of Her Own

Howard Keel, Cary Grant, George Murphy, and James Mason were among those considered for the role of Steve Harleigh, which eventually went to Wendell Corey, who worked on the production through mid-February 1950 but then allegedly asked to be released from the film because he felt he wasn't right for the role.

Anne Perry

The two teenage girls, who had created a rich fantasy life together populated with famous actors such as James Mason and Orson Welles, did not want to be separated.

F. Maurice Speed

As time went on, Speed gathered together more and more outside contributors, among them Peter Noble, William K. Everson, Oswell Blakeston, Peter Cowie, Anthony Slide, Ivan Butler and Gordon Gow, as well as soliciting special articles by such film industry figures as James Mason, Michael Balcon, Cecil B. De Mille and Alfred Hitchcock.

Faisal II of Iraq

In 1952, Faisal visited the United States, where he met President Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, the actor James Mason, and Jackie Robinson, among others.

Geoffrey Scowcroft Fletcher

His best-known work, The London Nobody Knows, was made into a documentary film in 1967, directed by Norman Cohen and narrated by British actor James Mason.

John Skyler

Skyler would compete as a regular member of the World Riot Squad (with Steven Walters, The Bravado Brothers, American Avalanche (PN News), and Sam Adonis) against the likes of James Mason, Tony Teesside, "Party" Marty Scurll, Frankie Sloan, Robbie Dynamite, El Ligero, Dean Allmark, The Hooligans, Michinoku Pro's Kenbai, Nathan Cruz, Max Moran, and New Japan's Hiro Takahashi.

Neil Dickson

He spent the following nine months on location in Tunisia working opposite James Mason, Susan Sarandon, Ava Gardner and Ian McShane.

Paul Delprat

For Age of Consent, starring Helen Mirren and James Mason, Delprat created paintings, drawings and sculptures of Helen Mirren for the motion picture, directed by Michael Powell, based on the novel by Norman Lindsay.

Professional wrestling in the United Kingdom

Other major US promotions, however, opted to use wrestlers from the traditional promotions such as the Team UK in TNA's 2004 X Cup which featured All Star Wrestling wrestlers James Mason, Dean Allmark, Robbie Dynamite and Frankie Sloan.

Sidney Norman Bernstein

In the late 1930s he co-edited with Reinfeld a book on the Kemeri 1937 chess tournament, and in 1947 the two collaborated on a revision of James Mason’s The Art of Chess.

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel

It stars James Mason in the title role, was directed by Henry Hathaway, and was based on the book Rommel by Brigadier Desmond Young, who served in the Indian Army in North Africa.