"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
04/12/2014 at 02:11 • Filed to: None
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"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
04/12/2014 at 02:11 • Filed to: None | 1
| 4 |
After watching the terrible British film Zeta One , I looked up the cast on IMDB. The heaviest hitter they got for the film was James Robertson Justice. Say what you will about the Dos Equis guy, this guy led perhaps the most interesting life of anybody I've heard of, and it included a stint as a racing driver.
The son of an Aberdeen-born geologist who was named after his father, James Justice was born in Lee, a suburb of Lewisham in South London, in 1907. Educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, Justice studied science at University College, London, but left after a year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn, where he again left after just a year. He spoke many languages (possibly up to 20) including French, Greek, Danish, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch and Gaelic.
Justice returned to the UK in 1927, and became a journalist with Reuters in London, alongside Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. After a year he emigrated to Canada, where he worked as an insurance salesman, taught English at a boys' school, became a lumberjack and mined for gold. He came back to England penniless, working his passage on a Dutch freighter.
On return to Britain he served as secretary of the British Ice Hockey Association in the early 1930s and managed the national team at the 1932 European Championships in Berlin to a seventh place finish. He combined his administrative duties in 1931–32 with a season as goaltender with the London Lions.
Justice was entered in a Wolseley Hornet Special in the JCC Thousand Mile Race at Brooklands on 3 and 4 May 1932. The car was unplaced. The following year a "J. Justice (J.A.P. Special)" competed in the Brighton Speed Trials: "Justice's machine "Tallulah" noisily expired before the end of the course, and was pushed back to the start by way of the arcade under the terrace." The Brighton event was won by Whitney Straight and according to Denis Jenkinson: "Flitting round the periphery of the team was James Robertson-Justice." In February 1934 Straight took delivery of a new Maserati: "Jimmy Justice went off to Italy to collect the first car which was 8CM number 3011." Motor Sport reported in 1963: "We remember him at Lewes with a G.N. and in a Relay Race with a Wolseley Hornet."
Justice left Britain again to become a policeman for the League of Nations in the Territory of the Saar Basin (a region of Germany occupied and governed by France and Germany under a League of Nations mandate originating in the Treaty of Versailles). After the Nazis came to power, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. It was here that he first grew his signature trademark bushy beard, which he retained throughout his career. On return to Britain, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, but after sustaining an injury in 1943 (thought to be shrapnel from a German shell), he was pensioned off.
After all of that, he moved on to a successful acting career with 87 credits, including the role of Lord Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang . Justice died of a stroke in 1975, three days after marrying his second wife.
Roberto G.
> ttyymmnn
04/12/2014 at 02:17 |
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His second wife must have been quite a wildcat.
Flat Six
> Roberto G.
04/12/2014 at 04:46 |
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...or a topless alien from the planet Angiva
I tried watching Zeta One a few months ago (its on Netflix) and just couldn't finish it.
Would rather watch a bio about Mr Justice
ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
> ttyymmnn
04/12/2014 at 07:46 |
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I think Sir Christopher Lee would give this man a run for his money.
JACU - I've got bonifides.
> ttyymmnn
04/12/2014 at 11:56 |
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I am going to drink to this man's memory tonight.