Tribute to a gay soap star: James Mitchell … aka Palmer Cortlandt of “All My Children”

I was reading the obit on actor James Mitchell in the LA Times last night and there were plenty of surprises for me.

I had no idea that the man who played the gruff patriarch Palmer Cortlandt for more than three decades on ABC’s All My Children was 89 years old! I didn’t know that he had the lead roles on Broadway in such musicals as Paint Your Wagon, Billion Dollar Baby, Brigadoon and Bloomer Girl and toured with Chita Rivera in The Three Penny Opera. Mitchell also had many movie roles including The Turning Point, The Band Wagon, Oklahoma and Deep in My Heart.

And most importantly – to me – is I did not know he was gay!

I learned it from The Times which, at the end of the second paragraph, attributes the information about his death last Friday to his longtime partner Albert Wolsky.

Mitchell’s last All My Children appearance was earlier this month on the show’s 40th anniversary episode which was taped sometime in December. Palmer was gruff on the outside and could be quite a ruthless schemer in days gone by, but at the core of it was a deep love for his family.

I still remember when he first came on the show was the over-controlling father of the beautiful Nina. Once she finally got a life of her own, he had a lovely remarriage to Daisy (Nina’s mom) then a terrible one to Cynthia and also marriages to Donna and Opal – I think! I catch the show from time to time but have not watched it regularly in many years.

“He really enjoyed it,” Wolsky said of his work on the soap. “The meaner he could be, the happier he was; actors love to play the villain.”