Lynda Hirsch on Soaps

Q: I know must people recall James Mitchell for his work on "All My Children." Wasn't he also a ballet dancer? Also, can you fill me in on his life and career? — Robert, Loma Linda, Calif.

A: James Mitchell, who died Jan. 22, referred to himself as an actor-dancer. Mitchell, who did not start ballet training until he was in his mid-20s, recalled the first time he met famed choreographer Agnes de Mille: "Her choreography was different from anything I had ever seen. I really hadn't too much familiarity with that, but I threw myself across the floor and about the third or fourth pass, Agnes cried, 'Stop,' and summoned me over and said, 'Where on earth did you get your dance training?'" De Mille still offered Mitchell the dual position of principal dancer and assistant choreographer.

To work with her, he turned down a tour with Helen Hayes. The duo collaborated from 1944 until her death in the mid-1960s.

De Mille's biographer, Carol Easton, describes him as the "quintessential male de Mille dancer" and de Mille's "closest confidant" in her artistic life. De Mille herself said of Mitchell that he had "probably the strongest arms in the business, and the adagio style developed by him and his partners has become since a valued addition to ballet vocabulary."

Years later, Mitchell simply claimed to be a good partner to some amazing female dancers. If you see the film version of "Oklahoma," where he plays Curly in a dance dream, sequence you will understand what de Mllle meant.

Although he did many movies, they were mostly of the B variety.

However, in the excellent "Turning Point," in which he played the ballet master, Mitchell shows what a fine film actor he was. He once told me that "that role really was about who I am." It was to be his last film.

During that filming, he met Albert Wolsky, the movie's Oscar-winning costume designer. He and Mitchell became lifelong partners. In 1974, a turn in the Broadway musical "Mack & Mabel" had a negative effect on his career. The show — expensive to mount — was a flop.

For about five years, he did very little work. His career picked up when he was hired to play Palmer on "AMC." The role was to only last a year. Thirty years later, he was still playing Palmer.

"AMC" was not his first soap role. He came to daytime television in 1964, playing a crime boss on "Edge of Night." On "Where the Heart Is," he played Professor Julian Hathaway from 1969-1973.

Mitchell claimed that his early life — not always an easy one — led to the profession he loved. His parents, who emigrated from England, owned a fruit farm in Northern California. When he was young, his mother left his father, taking his sister and brother to England. The actor confided he never had any contact with his mother after that. With his father unable to run the farm and raise his son, he sent him to live with vaudevillians Gene and Katherine King. After Mitchell's mother died, his father remarried. He and his brother went back to the farm. At 17, he left home.

"I always kept in contact with the Kings," he once said. "It was from them that I learned to love performing."

To find out more about Lynda Hirsch and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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