James Edwards was an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 actor in films and television. His most famous role was as Private Peter Moss in the 1949 film Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave (1949 film)

Home of the Brave is a 1949 film based on a 1946 play by Arthur Laurents. It was directed by Mark Robson and stars Douglas Dick, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy, James Edwards, and Steve Brodie...

, in which he portrayed a soldier experiencing racial prejudice while serving in the South Pacific during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Other notable roles were in Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

's The Killing (1956) and John Frankenheimer

John Frankenheimer

John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...

's The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate

The Manchurian Candidate , by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party....

(1962). Edwards was prolific on TV in the 1960s, playing character roles in various series such as Peter Gunn

Peter Gunn

Peter Gunn is an American private eye television series which aired on the NBC and later ABC television networks from 1958 to 1961. The show's creator was Blake Edwards...

, The Fugitive

The Fugitive (TV series)

The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...

, Burke's Law

Burke's Law

Burke's Law is a detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud...

, Dr. Kildare

Dr. Kildare

Dr. James Kildare is a fictional character, the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series of the same name and a comic book based on the TV show, and a short-lived 1970s television series...

and Mannix

Mannix

Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors...

, before his death of a heart attack at the age of 51.

Selected filmography

• The Set-Up
  The Set-Up (1949 film)
  For 2011 Set Up see hereThe Set-Up is an American film noir boxing drama directed by Robert Wise and featuring Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter. The screenplay was adapted by Art Cohn from a 1928 poem written by Joseph Moncure March. The film is about the boxing underworld.-Plot:Stoker Thompson ...
  
  (1949)
• Home of the Brave (1949)
• The Steel Helmet
  The Steel Helmet
  The Steel Helmet is a war film directed by Samuel Fuller and produced by Lippert Studios during the Korean War. It was the first film about the war, and the first of several war films by producer-director-writer Fuller.-Plot:...
  
  (1951)
• The Caine Mutiny
  The Caine Mutiny (film)
  The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II, directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Stanley Kramer. It stars Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, and is based on the 1951 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk The Caine Mutiny. The film...
  
  (1954)
• The Phenix City Story
  The Phenix City Story
  The Phenix City Story is a film noir directed by Phil Karlson and written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur. The drama features John McIntire, Richard Kiley, among others.-Plot:...
  
  (1955)
• The Killing (1956)
• Battle Hymn
  Battle Hymn (film)
  Battle Hymn is a Universal Studios feature film starring Rock Hudson as Colonel Dean E. Hess, a real-life United States Air Force fighter pilot in the Korean War. Hess's autobiography of the same name was published concurrently with the release of the film. He donated his profits from the film and...
  
  (1957)
• Men in War
  Men in War
  Men in War is a war film about the Korean War directed by Anthony Mann. It stars Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray as the leaders of a small detachment of American soldiers cut off and desperately trying to rejoin their division. The events of the film take place on one day; 6 September 1950...
  
  (1958)
• Fräulein (1958)
• Pork Chop Hill
  Pork Chop Hill
  Pork Chop Hill , directed by Lewis Milestone, is a Korean War war film based upon the eponymous book by military historian S. L. A. Marshall, depicting the bitterly fierce first Battle of Pork Chop Hill between the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Division, and Chinese and Korean Communist forces at the...
  
  (1959)
• The Manchurian Candidate
  The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)
  The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American Cold War political thriller film starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury, and featuring Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish and John McGiver...
  
  (1962)
• Coogan's Bluff
  Coogan's Bluff (film)
  Coogan's Bluff is a 1968 American Universal film directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Don Stroud, and Susan Clark...
  
  (1968)
• Patton
  Patton (film)
  Patton is a 1970 American biographical war film about U.S. General George S. Patton during World War II. It stars George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Michael Bates, and Karl Michael Vogler. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner from a script by Francis Ford Coppola and Edmund H...
  
  (1970)

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