Southern sheriff in two 1970s Bond films

PORTLAND, Ore. — Clifton

James, best known for his portrayal of a Southern sheriff in two James Bond films but who was most proud of his work on the stage, has died. He was 96.

His daughter, Lynn James, said he died Saturday at another daughter’s home in Gladstone, Ore., from diabetes complications.

James, born May 29, 1920, in Spokane, Wash., grew up in Washington state and Oregon. He fought with the U.S. Army in the South Pacific in World War II and received two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star.

Lynn James said one of the Purple Hearts came when a bullet pierced his helmet and zipped around the inside to burst out and split his nose. The second Purple Heart, she said, came from shrapnel that knocked out many of his teeth.

She said her father rarely spoke about the war and never described events leading to his receiving the Silver Star.

After the war, he started acting in plays in college at the University of Oregon then moved to New York to start his career.

One of his first significant roles was as a prison floor-walker in the 1967 classic Cool Hand Luke.

His long list of roles also includes swaggering, tobacco-spitting Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the Bond films, first appearing in 1973’s Live

and Let Die alongside Roger Moore’s portrayal of Bond.

James was such a hit that writers carved a role for him in the next Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun, in 1974, playing the same sheriff on vacation in Thailand as the epitome of the ugly American abroad.

His daughter said he was surprised that people remembered him most for that role.