James Ellison; Buffalo Bill in ‘The Plainsman’

James Ellison, who played major roles in 82 films, including Buffalo Bill in Gary Cooper’s “The Plainsman,” has died. He was 83.

Ellison, who switched from acting to real estate and contracting in the 1950s, died Dec. 23 after breaking his neck in a fall near his Montecito home.

He was born James Ellison Smith on May 4, 1910, in Guthrie Center, Iowa. His father, an English-born rancher, and his mother, a writer, moved with him to Los Angeles when he was a youngster. He attended Hollywood High School and was graduated from Polytechnic High School, where he was student body president.

He studied acting at the Pasadena Community Theater and the Moscow Art Theater in Hollywood, and made his screen debut in the 1932 film “Play Girl” with Loretta Young.

The handsome, outdoors-loving Ellison soon found a niche in Westerns--notably as William Boyd’s sidekick Johnny Nelson in eight “Hopalong Cassidy” films.

Cecil B. De Mille liked his “Hoppy” work and cast him with Cooper in the legendary 1937 Western “The Plainsman.” Ellison always felt he was miscast as Buffalo Bill, and neither he nor De Mille was happy with his performance.

That film won him grander roles, however, in non-Westerns such as “Vivacious Lady” with Ginger Rogers in 1938, which revealed his unrealized talent for light comedy. He went on to “Next Time I Marry” with Lucille Ball and “Mother Carey’s Chickens” with Ruby Keeler, both in 1938, and “Hotel for Women” in 1939 with Linda Darnell. His last film was “The Man From Black Hills” in 1952.

“I had no illusions about my abilities on the screen,” Ellison said in his later years, despite his considerable credits. “The best review I ever got was when a woman came over to me in a bank and asked if I was James Ellison. I thought she was a fan.

“It turned out she just wanted to tell me how much she and her family were enjoying the home I’d built a number of years before. I was delighted. I think I’ll be remembered more for Ellison Drive, which I developed in Beverly Hills, than for any of my pictures.”

Ellison’s first wife, Gertrude Durkin, died in 1970 after 33 years of marriage. He is survived by his second wife, former ballerina Shelly Keats, a son, two stepdaughters and five grandchildren.