James Neville Mason (; 15 May 190927 July 1984) was an English actor. He achieved considerable success in British cinema before becoming a star in Hollywood. He was the top box-office attraction in the UK in 1944 and 1945; his British films included The Seventh Veil (1945) and The Wicked Lady (1945). He starred in Odd Man Out (1947), the first recipient of the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Mason starred in such films as George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954), Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962), Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982). He also starred in a number of successful British and American films from the 1950s to the early 1980s, including: The Desert Fox (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), Bigger Than Life (1956), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Georgy Girl (1966), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Mason was nominated for three Academy Awards, three Golden Globes (winning the Golden Globe in 1955 for A Star is Born) and two BAFTA Awards throughout his career. Following his death in 1984, his ashes were interred near the tomb of his close friend, fellow English actor Sir Charlie Chaplin. Early life, family, and education Mason was born on 15 May 1909, in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the youngest of three sons of John Mason and Mabel Hattersley, daughter of J. Shaw Gaunt. A wealthy wool merchant like his father before him, John Mason travelled a good deal on business, mainly in France and Belgium; Mabel – who was "uncommonly well-educated" and had lived in London to study and begin work as an artist before returning to Yorkshire to care for her father – was "attentive and loving" in raising her sons. The Masons lived in a house on its own grounds on Croft House Lane in Marsh, which was replaced in the mid-1970s by flats called Arncliffe Court. A small residential development opposite where the house once stood is now called James Mason Court. Mason was educated at Marlborough College, and took a first in architecture at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he became involved in stock theatre companies in his spare time. He had no formal training in acting and initially embarked upon it for fun. Career 1931–1939: Early acting roles 1931–1933: Early stage work After Cambridge, Mason