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James Wainwright, a versatile actor born in Illinois in 1938, showed artistic talent early on and earned a scholarship to Carnegie University. However, his artistic pursuits were interrupted when he joined the Marines. After his honorable discharge, he worked various unskilled jobs before discovering a passion for acting. He auditioned successfully for the Actors' Studio and moved West in the late 1960s to chase a career in film and television.
Initially typecast as a ruthless villain, Wainwright’s image softened after securing a recurring role in the 1969 TV series Daniel Boone (1964). In 1972, he starred in his own weekly show, Jigsaw, playing Lt. Frank Dain, a determined officer in the California State Police Bureau of Missing Persons who often bent the rules. Despite its promise, the series lasted less than a season. Over the years, he appeared in supporting roles alongside Oscar-winning actors such as Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd (1972), George Kennedy in the prison drama Mean Dog Blues (1978), and Walter Matthau and Robin Williams in The Survivors (1983). He also featured in several TV movies, notably portraying a young J. Edgar Hoover who matures into the role played by Broderick Crawford in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977), and made guest appearances on popular shows like Cannon, The Fall Guy, Dynasty, Magnum P.I., Hardcastle & McCormick, and Hunter.
In his second TV series, Beyond Westworld (1980), Wainwright returned to playing a villain as an unstable scientist who creates and unleashes human-like robots to conquer the world. This series, inspired by the 1973 Yul Brynner film, was short-lived. After further TV guest roles and a part in the low-budget action film Mission Manila (1988), Wainwright retired from acting. He remained largely out of the public eye until his reported death from lung cancer on December 20, 1999, at the age of 61.
