James Mishler(1923-2003)
- Actor
He was born James Eugene Mishler in St. Paul, Minnesota and moved to
Chicago at a very early age. He fought in W.W. 2 as a paratrooper with
the O.S.S.., attached to the 82nd and 101st airborne. After the war, he
returned to Chicago and enrolled in the Goodman Theater, at the
University of Chicago. It was there that he met his future wife,
Jacqueline Jones. After moving to Florida and California they settled
in Long Island, New York where they studied under Uta Hagen. In New
York he did Broadway and Off-Broadway shows including The Cain Mutiny Court Martial
and the Three Penny Opera. While working on stage and TV he started
doing commercials and at one point was in more commercials than any
other actor. In 1965 he moved his family to Rome, Italy and did
extensive movie work and dubbing. The family moved back to the States
in the early 1970s and he was working on and off until he was asked to be
Hemingway in a Vanity Fair photo shoot. That photo shoot got him to
write a one-man play about Hemingway in Cuba. In it, Hemingway is in a
cantina talking about his past while waiting for a reporter to arrive
for an interview. The play got great reviews and was filmed, but never
aired. He died at the age of 80 having lived a full life.
