James McEachin (May 20, 1930 – January 11, 2025) Actor, author and veteran of the Korean War. He appeared in various films and television shows.
He was regularly cast in professional, "solid citizen" occupational roles, such as a lawyer or a police commander, guesting on numerous series such as Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Mannix, The Feather and Father Gang, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, Diagnosis Murder, Dragnet, It Takes a Thief, and Adam-12, and in television movies including Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972); The Alpha Caper (1973) and The Dead Don't Die (1975).
McEachin played Mr. Turner, a tax collector for the Internal Revenue Service, and later a character named Solomon Jackson, a co-worker that Archie Bunker tries to recruit for his social club, on the television show All in the Family. In 1973, he starred as Harry Tenafly, the title character in Tenafly, a short-lived detective series about a police officer turned private detective who relied on his wits and hard work rather than guns and fistfights. As the star of that show, he is (along with Susan Saint James of McMillan and Wife) one of the last surviving actors to have starred as a title character from a series featured on the 1970s' NBC Mystery Movie. McEachin also appeared occasionally as Lieutenant Ron Crockett on Emergency!. In 1979, he played the role of a jaded ex-marine high school baseball coach in an episode ("Out at Home") of The White Shadow.
While continuing to guest star in many television series and appearing in several feature-length films, McEachin landed his most memorable role, that of Police Lieutenant Brock in the 1986 television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Notorious Nun. He would reprise this role in more than a dozen Perry Mason telemovies from 1986 until 1995, starring opposite Raymond Burr. (Wikipedia)
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