American dancer and actor James Mitchell was born on February 29, 1920 in Sacramento, California. Fostered as a child—his parents separated and his father was unable to raise him while tending to the family farm—he eventually studied drama at the Los Angeles City College. He was introduced to modern dance by renowned choreographer Lester Horton. After graduating, he joined Horton’s dance company, where he stayed for four years. Afterwards, the two attempted to start a new dance company in New York, but the venture failed.
New York proved to be the turning point in Mitchell’s career. He successfully auditioned for renowned choreographer Agnes DeMille despite his lack of ballet training, and joined the cast of the musical Bloomer Girl as the principal male dancer. He would work with her in numerous Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s, and worked for other renowned dancers like Gower Champion, Eugene Loring and Jerome Robbins until the late 1970s.
Mitchell also attempted to break into film, although he only had moderate success. He took on bit roles on the back of his success on the musical Brigidoon, and was later cast in films such as Colorado Territory, Border Incident, Stars in My Crown, Band Wagon, and his only starring role, The Peacemaker.
Mitchell, however, was more successful on television. After playing roles in drama anthologies, he took his first soap opera role, joining the cast of The Edge of Night in 1964. He then joined the cast of another daytime soap, Where the Heart Is, in 1969, where he played the main lead. When the Broadway run of Mack & Mabel flopped in 1974, he went back to college to be able to teach dance at Juilliard and Yale, before he was cast as the scheming business Palmer Cortlandt on All My Children. He still plays the role up to the present, although his appearances have become increasingly rare.