The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Indiana

Once in a while, a truly irreplaceable actor dies. "Irreplaceable" in the sense that there is no other actor like him. Never has been, never will be. He has carved out his own place in the world, and it will be forever empty.

And so it is with the death of James Whitmore, an 87-year-old powerhouse of an actor who softened his demeanor with a genial, effacing personality.

Whitmore died in Los Angeles Friday, according to his son.

Whitmore's name might not be familiar to some members of the public, but his face and career are indelible. His most memorable recent triumph was as Brooks, the gentle, grandfatherly inmate in "The Shawshank Redemption," whose sudden release from prison is not a good thing, to put it mildly.

But Whitmore was a multi-layered actor. One of his most famous jobs was on stage as Harry S Truman in a one-man show, "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!" It was, thankfully, preserved on film. Seek out the DVD.

He would also do one-man shows about humorist Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt.

To some people, though, he may only be the old guy who sold Miracle-Gro Plant Food in commercials. But even then, with his skills, he made you believe that he absolutely could not live without the product.

His career had an incredible breadth, from war movies ("Battleground") to musicals ("Oklahoma!") to science-fiction ("Planet of the Apes," "Them!") to TV ("CSI," "The Practice"). He was even the central character in a 1964 movie version of the book "Black Like Me," about a white man who made himself up to look black, to examine racism in the South.

I once interviewed him by phone when he was doing publicity in the mid-1980s for a TV miniseries, "Favorite Son." His voice was kind and helpful, unlike those of some famous folks I've spoken with. He knew his job, did it with deliberation and even glee.

But to those who knew him, it was a means to an end. Most reports say that James Whitmore was an absolutely devoted father and grandfather and worked only to help his family. The only work he supposedly really loved was the stage. Everything else was just a job.

We should all have such priorities.