Before the wii was ever invented, we used to spend our afternoons watching soap operas. My favorite was All My Children. And who can forget the sometimes evil Palmer Cortlandt played by James Mitchell.

James Mitchell was born February 19, 1920 in Sacramento, California. Mitchell’s mother left the family in 1923 and Mitchell’s father, unable to run a farm and raise a son at the same time, “loaned” him out to a vaudeville act, George and Katherine King. Mitchell’s father eventually remarried and went back to live with his father. At the age of seventeen he left for Los Angeles.

Mitchell study acting at Los Angeles City College and became involved in modern dance. He danced with Leslie Horton’s dance company for four years. He auditioned for Oklahoma! as a dancer and danced and also assisted Agnes de Mille with choreography. He would work with de Mille on a number of projects for Broadway and film. He worked on stage in musicals and dramas until the late 1970s.

Mitchell had limited success in film and appeared in a few movies. In the 1950s and 60s he appeared in numerous television series and movies. In 1964, he took a role in The Edge of Night, his first soap opera role.

Mitchell’s performing career almost ended in 1974 and he went to college to get a BA and MFA so that he could teach at the college level. He taught at Juilliard, Yale University, and Drake University. In 1979, he was asked to play Palmer Cortlandt on the soap opera All My Children. He was hired for only one year, but the role was extended and he ended up playing Palmer for 30 years.

James Mitchell died on January 22, 2010 a few weeks before what would have been his 90th birthday.