| James Bradbury Jr. | |
| Birth Name: | James Horatio Bradbury Jr. |
| Birth Date: | 5 October 1894 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Los Angeles, California, United States |
James Horatio Bradbury Jr. (October 5, 1894 – June 21, 1936)[1] [2] was an American character actor in supporting roles on stage and in films of the 1920s and 1930s.
The son of veteran character actor James Horatio Bradbury (1857–1940) and former actress Ruth Drake Torbett,[3] [4] New York-born Bradbury Jr. began his career on stage as a child in Madame Butterfly.[3] In 1919, following his military service in World War I,[2] he arrived in Hollywood. Notable roles included Richard Barthelmess' romantic rival in both Classmates (1924) and The Drop Kick (1927),[3] as well as appearances in numerous budget westerns such as Cheyenne (1929),[5] Smilin' Guns (1929)[6] and The Cisco Kid (1931).[7]
Bradbury also co-authored, with Edward Poland, one of his own stage vehicles, a well-received vaudeville playlet entitled "Psycho Bill",[8] which debuted in June 1921 at Proctor's 23rd Street Theatre in Manhattan.[9] By no later than December of that year, James Bradbury Sr. had joined the cast, portraying the father of Bradbury Jr.'s protagonist.[10] The two also collaborated on at least one other vaudeville sketch, "Solitaire," in 1928, written by Bradley Jr. and staged by his father.[11]
Towards the end of his brief career, however, Bradbury's roles trended towards the smaller and uncredited, as in Warner Brothers' Night Nurse (1931) and Paramount's Dancers in the Dark (1932),[12] [13] and even in what promised to be a high profile appearance in one of his last films, as the "third vampire" opposite Bela Lugosi in Tod Browning's Mark of the Vampire (1935), ended up on the cutting room floor.[14] By that time, however, even small parts were eluding him.
One possible explanation for this decline can be gleaned from the reactions of two 21st-century observers, authors John Booker and John Howard Reid, to whom—even in the context of silent film performers struggling, often unsuccessfully, to make the transition to sound—two of Bradbury's most prominently featured talking picture performances appear conspicuously, bordering on ridiculously, overwrought. Regarding his central role in the 1928 two-reeler Hollywood Bound, Reid notes that "Bradbury was never given another [such] star opportunity [...] And no wonder! Bradbury's ripe over-acting has to be seen (and heard) to be believed. It ranks as one of the hammiest performances I've ever seen."[15] Scarcely more diplomatic is Brooker's assessment of Bradbury's unintentionally conspicuous contribution to the 1932 Ken Maynard vehicle, Between Fighting Men.
If you find the stuttering and stammering of Fuzzy Knight and Roscoe Ates irritating, best stay away from this movie as Bradbury's stutter is ten times worse! Shame because otherwise this is a good vehicle for Ken Maynard and a rare chance to see Wallace MacDonald...[16]
Bradbury never married; indeed, apart from casual film acquaintances such as Viola Dana and Philo McCullough (cited in a July 1927 news item dubbing Bradbury "an enthusiastic swimmer" and frequenter of "various beach clubs [and] seaside homes"), one of the few individuals with whom he was reported to have a personal relationship—apart from family of origin—was actor Robert Armstrong, described in that same 1927 story as "an old friend and stage associate from the east [to whom Bradbury] has been extending hospitality lately in various other directions."[17] Not quite two months later, it was reported by Oakland Tribune that the two were on the verge of being paired by an undisclosed "big studio" as a comedy team in a series of upcoming films,[18] a project which evidently never got beyond the planning stage. The following month, the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News reported that Armstrong was one of ten guests attending a birthday party Bradbury Jr. had given for his father.[19]
On June 21, 1936, after having concluded that the "buddy" to whom he had recently entrusted over two hundred fifty dollars for the purpose of purchasing travelers checks had simply absconded with the funds, Bradford made an attempt to kill himself by turning on the gas in his room on West 11th Street in Los Angeles. Eventually growing impatient, he lit a match, setting off a gas explosion, thus turning himself, as reported by the Los Angeles Daily News, "into a human torch." Within two hours of his arrival at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, Bradbury had died, at age 41.[20]