James Gilmore Backus
E554783
James Gilmore Backus was an American actor and voice actor best known for playing Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island" and voicing the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| James Gilmore Backus canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5787971 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: James Gilmore Backus Context triple: [Jim Backus, birthName, James Gilmore Backus]
-
A.
John McIntire
John McIntire was an American character actor known for his distinctive deep voice and roles in Western films and television, as well as voice work in classic Disney animated features.
-
B.
Jack B. Sowards
Jack B. Sowards was an American screenwriter best known for writing the screenplay for the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
-
C.
Frank Lubey
Frank Lubey is a minor but symbolically important neighbor in Arthur Miller’s play "All My Sons," whose interest in astrology and everyday normalcy contrasts with the Keller family’s buried guilt.
-
D.
George Dunning
George Dunning was a Canadian-born animator and film director best known for directing the Beatles' 1968 animated feature film "Yellow Submarine."
-
E.
Bill L. Norton
Bill L. Norton is an American film and television director and screenwriter known for his work in the 1970s and 1980s, including projects in both feature films and popular TV series.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: James Gilmore Backus Target entity description: James Gilmore Backus was an American actor and voice actor best known for playing Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island" and voicing the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
-
A.
John McIntire
John McIntire was an American character actor known for his distinctive deep voice and roles in Western films and television, as well as voice work in classic Disney animated features.
-
B.
Jack B. Sowards
Jack B. Sowards was an American screenwriter best known for writing the screenplay for the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
-
C.
Frank Lubey
Frank Lubey is a minor but symbolically important neighbor in Arthur Miller’s play "All My Sons," whose interest in astrology and everyday normalcy contrasts with the Keller family’s buried guilt.
-
D.
George Dunning
George Dunning was a Canadian-born animator and film director best known for directing the Beatles' 1968 animated feature film "Yellow Submarine."
-
E.
Bill L. Norton
Bill L. Norton is an American film and television director and screenwriter known for his work in the 1970s and 1980s, including projects in both feature films and popular TV series.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American actor
ⓘ
film actor ⓘ human ⓘ television actor ⓘ voice actor ⓘ |
| activeYearsEnd | 1980s ⓘ |
| activeYearsStart | 1930s ⓘ |
| birthName | James Gilmore Backus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| burialPlace | Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath |
Parkinson's disease
ⓘ
pneumonia ⓘ |
| characterPortrayed |
Mr. Magoo
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Thurston Howell III NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| dateOfBirth | 1913-02-25 ⓘ |
| dateOfDeath | 1989-07-03 ⓘ |
| employer |
ABC
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
CBS NERFINISHED ⓘ Columbia Pictures NERFINISHED ⓘ Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ⓘ Warner Bros. NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| ethnicGroup | White American ⓘ |
| familyName | Backus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| genre | comedy ⓘ |
| givenName | James ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName | English ⓘ |
| name | Jim Backus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| nationality | American ⓘ |
| notableRole |
near-sighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo
ⓘ
wealthy, snobbish millionaire Thurston Howell III on Gilligan's Island NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Gilligan's Island
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
I Married Joan NERFINISHED ⓘ Mr. Magoo NERFINISHED ⓘ Rebel Without a Cause NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| occupation |
actor
ⓘ
comedian ⓘ radio personality ⓘ voice actor ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Cleveland, Ohio, United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| placeOfDeath | Los Angeles, California, United States NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| residence |
Los Angeles
ⓘ
surface form:
Los Angeles, California, United States
|
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| spouse | Henny Backus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| workedOn |
animated films
ⓘ
radio series ⓘ television series ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: James Gilmore Backus Description of subject: James Gilmore Backus was an American actor and voice actor best known for playing Thurston Howell III on "Gilligan's Island" and voicing the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.