Actor James McEachin passes away at 94

LOS ANGELES: Veteran actor James McEachin has passed away. His wife, Lois, whom he married in 1960, had passed away in 2017.

As per The Hollywood Reporter, James, who wrote and produced songs for Otis Redding before turning to acting to portray cops in his own NBC Mystery Movie series and in 18 of the popular Perry Mason telefilms, died on January 11 and was interred last month at Los Angeles National Cemetery.

James McEachin was born on May 20, 1930, in Rennert, North Carolina, and raised in Hackensack, New Jersey. At 17, he joined the US Army in August 1947.

Everyone should abt James McEachin 95 BOTD! I worked w/this fascinating man often-Korean War vet, 7 medals of honor, author, Farewell to the Mockingbirds abt 63 Black soldiers wrongly court marshaled during WWI, alias “Jimmy Mack,” record producer, and UA contract player-HBD Jim! pic.twitter.com/TWW9t3mIuv

— 𝔻𝕖𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕙 (@DADiClementi) May 20, 2025

McEachin spent more than two years in Japan as part of his first three-year term, then re-enlisted for another three years. As a member of the 2nd Infantry Division, he was wounded in an ambush and left for dead before being rescued. (He was awarded both the Purple Heart and Silver Star in 2005.)

In 2002, McEachin played a liberal Supreme Court justice on ‘First Monday’, a short-lived CBS drama from Donald P Bellisario that starred James Garner and Joe Mantegna.

McEachin was appointed a US Army Reserve Ambassador in 2005 to spend time speaking with soldiers and veterans. A year later, he wrote, produced and starred (with David Huddleston, a castmate on Tenafly) in a 23-minute video called ‘Old Glory’ that the military community embraced, as per The Hollywood Reporter.

His one-man play, ‘Above the Call; Beyond the Duty’, opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2008 and played LA’s Mark Taper Forum three years later. He portrayed Old Soldier, a character who “pries open tough issues left in the wake of battle, boldly confronting challenges that are facing those serving in our military today while reconciling the spirit of one who has killed in war.

McEachin also wrote several books, including 1996’s ‘Tell Me a Tale: A Novel of the Old South’, 1997’s ‘Farewell to the Mockingbirds’, 1999’s ‘The Heroin Factor’, 2000’s ‘Say Goodnight to the Boys in Blue’ and 2021’s ‘Swing Low My Sweet Chariot: The Ballad of Jimmy Mack’, a memoir. (ANI)