James Brown was born 22 March 1920 in the small town of Desdemona, Eastland County, Texas. Brown graduated from The Desdemona School (grades 1-12) which was built in 1922. It finally closed in 1969. Very athletic, Brown became a tennis pro before there was any money in it. He then 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 the 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 (1949) with John (The Duke) Wayne and Brown as a U.S. Marine, Private first class Charlie Bass. In Pride of St. Louis (1952), a biopic about baseball star Dizzy Dean, Brown played a sidelined ballplayer "Moose". In the 1954 Flight Nurse he played the plans Flight Engineer on the mission mercy aircraft. He then began a Television career as Lt. Rip Masters on TV's Rin Tin Tin, which ran from 1954 to 1958. He then appeared in The Rounders, (1966) TV Comedy Western Series (as James Bowen Brown) character Luke. In 1976 the Rin Tin Tin TV series was re-released with new sepia tinted beginnings and endings with James L. Brown reprising his role as Lt. Rip Masters. Few of his later movies are worth mentioning, though he had a few telling moments as the stern, rifle-toting father of the serial killer "protagonist" in Peter Bogdanovich's Targets (1968). He retired from acting in the late 1960s to manage his successful body-building equipment concern, and then was appointed head of customer relations at Faberge, a cosmetics firm. When Faberge's filmmaking division, Brut Productions, put together a 1975 comedy titled Whiffs, the producers persuaded Brown to return to acting in a supporting role. He passed away in 1992 after a long battle with lung cancer.


Is best known to aging baby boomers for his continuing role as "Lt. Rip Masters" on the popular 1950s TV series "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin" (1954). In 1955 he recorded "The White Buffalo" which was the title song of an episode of Rin Tin Tin (1954) where he had a regular role as Lt. Rip Masters.