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Born James Meador in Nashville, Tennessee, in February 1912, handsome second-string leading man James Craig enjoyed a lengthy career in films, spanning the 1930s through the 1950s. When he was a child, Craig`s family moved to Texas, where he grew up and went to college. He had just turned 25 when he was put under contract with Paramount in early 1937, and after a few small roles in films, Craig jumped ship to Columbia. He fared better at the new studio, where he earned a starring role in the backlot drama North of Shanghai (1939; with Betty Furness and Morgan Conway) and appeared in several comedy short subjects, such as Trouble Finds Andy Clyde (1939; with Andy Clyde) and the Three Stooges vehicle Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise (1939). Tiring of the low budgets at Columbia, Craig left for RKO`s greener pastures in 1940. His fortunes improved when he was cast in meaty roles in Kitty Foyle (1940; with Ginger Rogers and Dennis Morgan) and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941; with Walter Huston and Simone Simon), probably the best films of his career.
Craig hopped over to MGM with the onset of World War II. With many leading men going into the service, Craig`s career flourished in comedies and dramas, such as The Heavenly Body (1944; with William Powell and Hedy Lamarr), Kismet (1944; with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich), and Dangerous Partners (1945; with Signe Hasso). But after the war, Craig`s star began to fade. He then moved to westerns, some of them low-budget affairs such as Last of the Desperados (1955; with Jim Davis), Massacre (1956; with Dane Clark), and Man or Gun (1958; with Macdonald Carey and Audrey Totter).
When his film career began to fizzle in the late 1950s, Craig turned to selling real estate and made a fortune. Thereafter, he appeared in movies only sporadically. Aside from a few late 1960s westerns, the nadir of his career proved to be the campy bargain-basement productions Doomsday Machine (filmed in 1967 but released in 1972; with Denny Miller, Grant Williams, and Ruta Lee), Bigfoot (1970; with John Carradine and Joi Lansing), and The Tormentors (1971; with Anthony Eisley and Chris Noel). Following the latter title, Craig gave up show business for good. Sadly, after a bout with cancer he passed away in June 1985 at age 73. Wed several times, Craig was briefly married to actress Jil Jarmyn in the late 1950s and was married twice to his first wife, Jane.
Biography Credit: www.briansdriveintheater.com/jamescraig.html
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