James McEachin
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James McEachin (b. May 20, 1930) is an African-American actor and novelist best known for portraying police lieutenant Brock in the Perry Mason television movie series.
As a young man, James McEachin served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Serving in King Company, he was wounded (nearly fatally), requiring multiple battlefield surgeries to save his life. He was eventually awarded both the Purple Heart and Silver Star.
After returning home, he began his acting career on stage, and was soon signed by Universal as a contract actor in the 1960s. 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, Mannix, and Dragnet. He also acted in Play Misty for Me (1971) with Clint Eastwood. In 1973, McEachin 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.
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, appearing opposite the late Raymond Burr.
In the 1990s, McEachin semi-retired from acting to pursue a writing career. His first work was a military history of the court-martial of 63 black American soldiers during the First World War, titled Farewell to the Mockingbirds (1995), which won the 1998 Benjamin Franklin Award. His next works, mainly fiction novels, included The Heroin Factor (1999), Say Goodnight to the Boys in Blue (2000), The Great Canis Lupus (2001), and Tell me a Tale: A Novel of the Old South (2003). McEachin also published Pebbles in the Roadway in 2003, a collection of short stories and essays which the author describes as "a philosophical view of America and Americans."
In 2001, McEachin received the Distinguished Achievement Award from Morgan State University. In 2005, he became an Army Reserve Ambassador, giving speeches on behalf of the military and various veteran's group; this distinction carries the protocol of a two-star general.
