James Gleason (May 23, 1882 – April 12, 1959) was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.

Balding and slender with a craggy voice, Gleason portrayed tough but warm-hearted characters, usually with a New York background. He appeared in several movies with his wife Lucille.

Gleason co-wrote The Broadway Melody, the second film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and had a small uncredited role in it. Gleason also co-wrote and briefly appeared as a hot dog vendor in the 1934 Janet Gaynor vehicle Change of Heart. He played a milk cart driver who gives lessons in marriage to Judy Garland and Robert Walker in the 1945 film, The Clock, while Lucille played his wife. In the same year he played the bartender in the film adaptation of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Gleason also is remembered for playing police Inspector Oscar Piper in a series of Hildegarde Withers mystery films during the 1930s (which first starred Edna May Oliver in the role of the schoolteacher detective in three films. Helen Broderick starred in one, and Zasu Pitts finished out the series with two movies.)

He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as boxing manager Max 'Pop' Corkle in the 1941 film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan.

James Gleason was interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

James Gleason was born in New York City to William Gleason and Mina Crolius, who were both in the theatre. He was married to Lucile Gleason (born Lucile Webster), and had a son, Russell Gleason (I). As a young man James fought in the Spanish-American War. After the war he joined the stock company at the Liberty Theater in Oakland, California, which his parents were running. James and his wife then moved to Portland, Oregon, where they played in stock at the Baker Theater. For several years afterward they toured in road shows until James enlisted in the army during World War I. When he returned he appeared on the stage in "The Five Million." He then turned to writing, including "Is Zat So", which he produced for the NY stage. He also wrote and acted in "The Fall Guy" and "The Shannons on Broadway." Next he wrote Broadway Melody, The (1929) for MGM. He collaborated, in 1930, on Swellhead, The (1930), Dumbbells in Ermine (1930), What a Widow! (1930), Rain or Shine (1930) and His First Command (1929). He and his wife were then contracted to Pathe, Lucille to act, and James (or Jimmie as he was known) as a writer. Probably his most famous acting role was as Max Corkle, the manager of Joe Pendleton who was wrongly plucked from this life into the next, in the hit fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).