Yesterday James “Miracle-Gro” Whitmore left the earth. He was 87, one year older than my dad when he passed last June. And to a marginal extent an angry or at least a brutally candid type, which I relate to. An actor who never seemed to really “act”, which of course is the best way. My favorite Whitmore performances all happened in the early to mid ’50s: William Welman‘s Battleground (with the constant wad of chewing tobacco), Them, John Huston‘s The Asphalt Jungle.