Jim Backus

Acting

Jim Backus

Born 1913-02-25 · Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Jim Backus (1913–1989) was a radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous credits are The Alan Young Radio Show, I Married Joan, Gilligan's Island, and Rebel Without a Cause. He also starred on his own show The Jim Backus Show.

Acting credits

Rebel Without a Cause poster
7.5

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

Rebel Without a Cause

1955

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World poster
7.0

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

1963

Pete's Dragon poster
6.3

Pete, a young orphan, runs away to a Maine fishing town with his best friend a lovable, sometimes invisible dragon named Elliott! When they are taken in by a kind lighthouse keeper, Nora, and her father, Elliott's prank playing lands them in big trouble. Then, when crooked salesmen try to capture Elliott for their own gain, Pete must attempt a daring rescue.

Pete's Dragon

1977

Johnny Cool poster
5.3

A deported gangster trains an Italian convict to take over his operations in the U.S.

Johnny Cool

1963

Myra Breckinridge poster
4.6

Myron Breckinridge flies to Europe to get a sex-change operation and is transformed into the beautiful Myra. She travels to Hollywood, meets up with her rich Uncle Buck and, claiming to be Myron's widow, demands money. Instead, Buck gives Myra a job in his acting school. There, Myra meets aspiring actor Rusty and his girlfriend, Mary Ann. With Myra as catalyst, the trio begin to outrageously expand their sexual horizons.

Myra Breckinridge

1970

Above and Beyond poster
6.2

The story of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the pilot that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Although unaware of the full potential of this new weapon, he knows that it can do tremendously more damage than any other weapon used before, and that the death toll resulting from it will be huge. He is reluctant to be the person who will end so many lives, but as time goes on, the pressure upon him only increase.

Above and Beyond

1953

Pat and Mike poster
6.4

Pat Pemberton is a brilliant athlete, except when her domineering fiancé is around. The ladies golf championship is in her reach until she gets flustered by his presence at the final holes. He wants them to get married and forget the whole thing, but she cannot give up on herself that easily. She enlists the help of Mike Conovan, a slightly shady sports promoter. Together they face mobsters, a jealous boxer, and a growing mutual attraction.

Pat and Mike

1952

Have I Got a Christmas for You poster
NR

Members of a town's Jewish community decide to substitute for their Christian friends and neighbors so they can enjoy Christmas. The good folk humorously attempt jobs they have never done before.

Have I Got a Christmas for You

1977

Hurry Sundown poster
6.4

A ruthless Southern opportunist tries to buy his cousin's land, and when thwarted, brings several tragedies to the lives of his loved ones.

Hurry Sundown

1967

Advance to the Rear poster
5.2

As punishment for their incompetence in battle, disgraced Union soldier Capt. Jared Heath and his apathetic commanding officer, Col. Claude Brackenbury, are reassigned away from the front lines. The hapless Heath and Brackenbury must now lead a ragtag group on a classified mission to protect a transport for the U.S. Treasury. Complicating matters is Martha Lou Williams, a Confederate agent posing as a lady of the evening.

Advance to the Rear

1964

Billie poster
5.0

A 16-year-old tomboy and high school athlete becomes embroiled with the lives around her boyfriend whose conservative father is running for mayor.

Billie

1965

Angel Face poster
7.1

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.

Angel Face

1953

Scoutmaster Magoo poster
8.0

Magoo mistakes three bear cubs for three scouts.

Scoutmaster Magoo

1958

Deadline - U.S.A. poster
6.9

New York City newspaper The Day is in trouble. Even though editor Ed Hutcheson has worked hard running the paper, its circulation has been steadily declining. Now the publisher's widow wants to sell the paper, which will most likely mean its end. Hutcheson's only hope is to finish his exposé on a dangerous gangster before the sale is finalized.

Deadline - U.S.A.

1952

Don't Bother to Knock poster
6.6

An airline pilot pursues a live-in babysitter at his hotel and gradually realizes she is not as stable as perhaps she should be.

Don't Bother to Knock

1952

Now You See Him, Now You Don't poster
6.3

Dexter Riley is a science student at Medfield College who inadvertently invents a liquid capable of rendering objects and people invisible. Before Dexter and his friends, Debbie and Richard Schuyler, can even enjoy their spectacular discovery, corrupt businessman A.J. Arno plots to get his greedy hands on it. Slapstick hijinks ensue as Dexter and his pals try to thwart the evil Arno before he can use the invisibility spray to rob a bank.

Now You See Him, Now You Don't

1972

Top Secret Affair poster
4.9

A publisher uses her magazine and charm to derail a general on the Washington fast track.

Top Secret Affair

1957

His Kind of Woman poster
6.8

Career gambler Dan Milner agrees to a $50,000 deal to leave the USA for Mexico, only to find himself entangled with fellow guests at a luxurious resort and suspecting that the man who hired him may be the deported crime boss Nick Ferraro aiming to re-enter to the USA.

His Kind of Woman

1951

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm poster
5.9

The Grimm brothers Wilhelm and Jacob, known for their literary works in the nineteenth century, have their lives dramatized. Wilhelm fights to write something entertaining amongst the sea of dry, non-fiction books they write and he sets about collecting oral-tradition fairy tales to put into print. Their life story is countered with reenactments of three of their stories including "The Dancing Princess," "The Cobbler and the Elves" and "The Singing Bone."

The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm

1962

Man of a Thousand Faces poster
6.8

The turbulent life and professional career of vaudeville actor and silent screen horror star Lon Chaney (1883-1930), the man of a thousand faces; bearer of many personal misfortunes that even his great success could not mitigate.

Man of a Thousand Faces

1957

Iron Man poster
6.2

An ambitious coal miner is talked into becoming a boxer by his gambler brother.

Iron Man

1951

Boys' Night Out poster
5.9

Fred, George, Doug and Howie are quickly reaching middle-age. Three of them are married, only Fred is still a bachelor. They want something different than their ordinary marriages, children and TV-dinners. In secret, they get themselves an apartment with a beautiful young woman, Kathy, for romantic rendezvous. But Kathy does not tell them that she is a sociology student researching the sexual life of the white middle-class male.

Boys' Night Out

1962

Androcles and the Lion poster
5.9

George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.

Androcles and the Lion

1952

Good Guys Wear Black poster
5.1

The former leader of a commando rescue attempt into Vietnam tries to discover why his squad members are being murdered, one-by-one, after the war is over.

Good Guys Wear Black

1978

Behind the camera