- published: 12 Mar 2013
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James Neil Hamilton (September 9, 1899 – September 24, 1984) was an American actor known for his role as Commissioner Gordon on the Batman TV series of the 1960s. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a popular leading man.
An only child, Hamilton was born in Lynn, Massachusetts.
His show business career began when he secured a job as a shirt model in magazine ads, similar to fellow silent film performer Reed Howes who was known in advertisements as "The Arrow Collar Man". After this, he became interested in acting and joined several stock companies. This allowed him to secure his first film role in 1918, but he got his big break from D. W. Griffith in The White Rose (1923). In 1924, he traveled to Germany with Griffith and made the pseudo-documentary Isn't Life Wonderful, co-starring Griffith's muse and then girlfriend Carol Dempster.
Hamilton was signed by Paramount Pictures in the mid 1920s and soon became one of that studio's most popular leading men. In 1926, he played one of Ronald Colman's brothers in Paramount's original silent version of Beau Geste. He also starred in Mother Machree, the title of which would coincidentally become sidekick Chief O'Hara's catchphrase in the Batman television show nearly 4 decades later. He was steadily employed in supporting roles, and worked for just about every studio in Hollywood.
Actors: Charles Dance (actor), Robert Hardy (actor), Nadim Sawalha (actor), Kenneth Cranham (actor), John Benfield (actor), Michael Cochrane (actor), Richard Fell (producer), Julian Wadham (actor), Stephen Moore (actor), Caroline Langrishe (actress), Bettina Lyster (miscellaneous crew), Belinda Lang (actress), Alan Dixon (editor), Tim Leandro (director),
Genres: ,Actors: Colin Fox (actor), Jackie Burroughs (actress), Michael Copeman (actor), Frank Moore (actor), Damian Lee (producer), David Mitchell (editor), Damian Lee (director), David Mitchell (producer), Howard Jerome (actor), Andras Hamori (producer), Robert Kennedy (actor), Réal Andrews (actor), Kate Healey (actress), Stephen W. Parsons (composer), Karen Hines (actress),
Plot: A growth hormone experiment gets out of hand, when the the resulting giant man-eating rats escape, reaking havoc on the unsuspecting campus. Much blood-letting follows.
Keywords: based-on-novel, cancer, cult-film, electronic-music-score, giant-animal, giant-child, independent-film, mutant-animal, profanity, rat