James Brown

James Brown was born March 22, 1920 in the small town of Desdemona, Eastland County, Texas. He graduated from The Desdemona School (grades 1-12), which was built in 1922 (it closed in 1969). Very athletic, Brown became a tennis pro before there was any money in it. He entered films in 1941. Clearly a man of unlimited athletic prowess, he appeared in such rugged Hollywood productions as Wake Island (1942), Air Force (1943), Objective, Burma! (1945) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). He had more sedate roles in Going My Way (1944), as romantic lead "Ted Haines" (Bing Crosby, who was the star of the film, was a priest and therefore out of the running for the leading lady) and then, in "Sands of Iwo Jima" (with John Wayne), Brown was a U.S. Marine, Pfc. Charlie Bass, a combat veteran and colleague of Wayne's character Sgt. Stryker. In The Pride of St. Louis (1952), a biopic about baseball star Dizzy Dean, Brown played a sidelined ballplayer, "Moose". In Flight Nurse (1953) he played a flight en