[1] Costigan was born on March 31, 1926, in East Los Angeles, where his parents owned and operated a hardware store.
[1] Costigan won his first Emmy for original teleplay in 1959 for Little Moon of Alban, a segment which appeared as part of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
His 1970s work included A War of Children, written in 1972, which was about two families, one Roman Catholic and one Protestant, in Northern Ireland, whose long time friendship is threatened by sectarian violence.
[1] He won a second Emmy Award for Love Among the Ruins, a 1975 television movie set in Edwardian England, which starred Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier.
James Costigan died on December 19, 2007, aged 81, at his home in Bainbridge Island, Washington, of heart failure.