Around that time, God made it clear He had other plans for James. Showbiz work was not as plentiful or as well-paying as it had been before they left, and James considered looking for a job outside the industry that paid better than the tiny number of gigs he was being offered. After the war, James and Ruth came back home to California. By the time the war came to America, though, he was married to his wife, Ruth, and they put together a double act between them that they brought to the military abroad on USO tours. James had a heart condition that he was born with that prevented him from being drafted into the military during WWII. Most of the movies in which he appeared were in the 1940s and early 1950s. He also had many uncredited roles in movies during his pre-Disney career. Some of his co-stars included such luminaries in the acting world as John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Fred Astaire.
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There, James found work in nightclubs, and procured his first role in a movie in 1940, in a small part in Those Were the Days, which starred William Holden.Īfter this, James was able to get some other acting work, landing gigs in movies such as The Three Mesquiteers series of westerns, Flying Tigers, Janie (in which he sang a little), Keep Your Powder Dry, China’s Little Devils, Easter Parade, Quicksand, The Jackie Robinson Story, The Winning Team, and Phffft. In around 1940, he and his mom moved to southern California, landing in Los Angeles. In Nashville, James attended Vanderbilt University. Petersburg, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee. James looked for work after graduating from the Conservatory, looking in places like St. At the Conservatory, he played banjo in a band and began getting gigs to sing on the radio. In high school, James was known as “Red.” His senior class yearbook lists him as a member of the Astronomy Club, and states that he was known for being “jauntily decked.” After high school, James attended the University of Cincinnati, and then the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. His mother is listed as a widow in the 1930 US Federal Census. James’s mother remarried to Alfred Brauer when James was twelve years old, but the marriage was short-lived. He also learned salesman skills by watching his father at work at the music store, and he used these skills in his later career as an entertainer. The easy access to instruments provided to him by his father allowed James to develop a love of music when he was still a small child. This allowed him to go between the houses of his parents with ease, pretty much whenever he wanted to. James’s parents divorced when he was still young, but they lived only a few doors away from each other for much of James’s childhood. His father worked in a music store and performed on local AM radio.
His parents were John Wesley Dodd and Luella Thede. His birth name was Ivan Wesley Dodd, but he started going by James when he was still a child, and legally changed his first name from Ivan to James when he was thirty-nine years old. James Wesley Dodd was born on March 28, 1910, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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