James Roosevelt

Unsuccessfully screen-tested by Paramount in 1932, Roosevelt worked in the insurance and yeast businesses before assisting his father, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in the White House from 1936 to 1938. Roosevelt blamed a stomach ulcer on his government job and quit to work in Hollywood as vice president of Samuel Goldwyn Productions. As Goldwyn's representative on the board of United Artists, Roosevelt traveled in the US and abroad promoting "Wuthering Heights" (1939) and other Goldwyn films. It was widely speculated that Hollywood used Roosevelt for his connection to the White House. In 1939 Roosevelt formed Globe Productions, which made "Pot O' Gold" (1941) starring James Stewart, and presented "Pastor Hall" (1940), a British anti-Nazi film with a prologue by his mother, Eleanor Roosevelt. He left the film industry for active military service at the onset of WWII and his brief appearance in John Ford's combat documentary, "The Battle of Midway" (1942) helped bypass governmental red tape needed to clear its public release. Roosevelt served six terms as Democratic congressman from California (1954-65). He was screen-tested again in 1981 to play his father in the TV mini-series of Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War," but the role went to veteran F.D.R. actor, Ralph Bellamy.