Deaths 2022

Deaths 2021

Deaths 2020

Deaths 2019

Deaths 2018

Deaths 2017

Deaths 2016

Deaths 2015

Deaths 2014

Deaths 2013

Deaths 2012

Deaths 2011

Deaths 2010

Deaths 2009


Full list by date of death

James Drury

Actor

Born - 18 April 1934, New York City, USA
Died - 6 April 2020

Tall, taciturn, dark-haired, narrow-faced American actor with husky, laconic vocal delivery who, after seven years in featured film roles, made his name in the title role of The Virginian, TV's first feature-length western series. He had broken into films when only 21: Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Tender Trap (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), Love Me Tender (1956), Bernardine (1957), Bitter Heritage (1958), Good Day for a Hanging (1959), Toby Tyler (1960) and Pollyanna (1960). Despite being a New Yorker, Drury, an expert horseman, longed to be a western star in the footsteps of his movie heroes Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. He got to co-star with both as a villain in Sam Peckinpah's Guns in the Afternoon/Ride the High Country (1961), before starting nine years of The Virginian in 1962. His only films thereafter were The Young Warriors (1967), Maverick (1994), Hell to Pay (2005) and Billy and the Bandit (2012), his last. His (third) wife Cari Ann died in 2019 after 40 years of marriage.