James Olson (born October 8, 1930) is an American actor.
Olson was born in Evanston, Illinois and graduated from Northwestern University. He performed stage work in and around Chicago before his 1956 film debut in The Sharkfighters. From that point, he continued to appear in numerous film and television productions all the way through the early nineties.
Olson's television appearances include guest roles on countless shows including episodes of Kraft Television Theater, Murder, She Wrote, Little House On The Prairie, Hawaii Five-O, Battlestar Galactica, Lou Grant, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Mannix, Bonanza, Police Woman, Barnaby Jones and Maude, among many others.
Despite being a likeable onscreen presence and turning in consistently solid performances through the years, Olson never achieved top Hollywood status. His latest appearance on-screen was in a November 1990 episode of Murder, She Wrote.
He was a Chicago-based stage actor by the time he began his film career in the forgettable action drama The Sharkfighters (1956). A reedy, sensitive-looking blond, James Olson showed an understated power in his performances that often received critical applause, but also a taciturn personality that kept audiences at bay. His performance as Joanne Woodward's suitor in Rachel, Rachel (1968) gained him the best reviews of his career and it seemed he had finally earned his stripes, but despite impressive parts in The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Ragtime (1981), not to mention the TV-movies The Family Nobody Wanted (1975) and "The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer (1977), he never made a name for himself. A durable talent, he remained a reliable presence for years with TV guest spots, but by the the 1990s he had all but disappeared.
