James Melven Dannaldson (born July 17, 1915, Omaha, Nebraska, died August 12, 1984, Tarzana, California (age 69)) starred in the Frank Buck film Jacaré.

Young James was a shot put star at Hollywood High School in 1934, when he suffered his first animal mishap.

[1] Dannaldson was not deterred, and kept a barn filled with three rattlesnakes, five king snakes, ten turtles and one hoot owl when he was a University of Southern California student.

Dannaldson's most primitive adventure occurred on Marajó Island, at the mouth of the Amazon, where the movie company spent four weeks, ran out of imported food and had to subsist for five days on moldy doughnuts filled with small worms and on chickens which, Dannaldson said, seemed to be 90 per cent vulture.

[3] Producer Jules Levey incorporated a narration by Frank Buck and music by Miklos Rozsa into the finished film.