James A. Watson Jr.

James A. Watson Jr. is an actor and producer whose work in theater and television stretched across four decades in San Francisco, New York, and Hollywood. After training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he performed with the American Conservatory Theater and the Mark Taper Forum, and he later ran his own stage company as director and producer. On screen he appeared in twelve feature films and more than ninety television shows, commercials, TV films, and miniseries. In the 1970s and 1980s he became a sought-after actor for the networks at a time when minority performers had few roles. He received an NAACP Image Award nomination and worked alongside Sidney Poitier, Mary Tyler Moore, Jeff Bridges, and others. His later stage work included Death of a Salesman at South Coast Repertory and August Wilson's Jitney, which critic Charles McNulty named among the ten best American plays of 2012 and which won two Los Angeles Drama Circle Awards.