
Jimmy Bell in 1933.
James "Jimmy" Bell (1914 - 2012) was an Irish-American orphan and sailor on the SS Venture.
Biography[]
Jimmy was born in Ireland in a catholic family but his parents died when he was still a baby. He lived the next years in an orphanage, but he escaped. In 1929, Jimmy stowed away aboard the Venture with an arm broken in two places. He was found and befriended by first mate Benjamin Hayes before becoming a full member of the crew.
In 1933, while sailing for what the crew believed would be Singapore, Jimmy brought a dinner of lamb's brains in walnut sauce to American writer Jack Driscoll in the cargo hold. Hayes then came down to see if Jimmy had done the work he had asked, and Jimmy tried to run away, but Hayes stopped him and made him return the pen he had stolen from Driscoll. Up on deck, Hayes lectured Jimmy on his education, but Jimmy was content to work on the ship for the rest of his life. But to show his commitment to learning, Jimmy showed Hayes a copy of Heart of Darkness, which he had "borrowed" from the public library for its promise of "adventures on a tramp steamer". Jimmy would later vandalize the movie posters in Bruce Baxter's cabin with a marker.
However, while visiting the cargo hold, he overheard director Carl Denham tell Driscoll that they were filming at a place called Skull Island. He then told Hayes, and that night they and Lumpy confronted him. The sailors warned the director with tales of a hidden island told to them by a mad castaway seven years before, but the director paid them no mind.
While reading by flashlight in the crow's nest, Jimmy began to realize that a thick fog was encroaching from all sides. As the ship pushed forward, Jimmy shouted as soon as he saw a giant wall looming in the gloom. As the ship headed for rocks, Jimmy held onto the mast as they scraped the hull. Jimmy tried to call out the locations of rocks, but the ship was scuttled on a gigantic carving. However, while the ship was being repaired, Jimmy noticed Denham and his film crew rowing to shore, and went to notify the Captain. However, that night while throwing things overboard to lighten the ship, Driscoll came looking for Ann, whom Jimmy had last seen in her cabin. However, it quickly became apparent that she had been kidnapped, so Jimmy and the other sailors went ashore to save her, but were too late to keep her from being taken into the jungle beyond the wall. Jimmy wanted to help rescue her, but Hayes refused to let him join him, despite Jimmy's relative experience with a firearm.
Jimmy managed to remain undiscovered through a Triceratops attack, but after picking up the trail Kong had taken through the jungle, Hayes spotted him and tried to take away his gun. However, Hayes softened when Jimmy said that he just wanted to help bring Ann back. While resting in a narrow valley, the group was set upon by a stampede of Brontosaurus, which Jimmy barely survived by sprinting along the crumbling cliffs. The crew then created rafts to float across a swamp, and Jimmy sat at the front prepared to shoot at potential threats. However, they were attacked from beneath by several creatures. Jimmy survived the encounter, and was helped ashore on the other side by Lumpy.
The group continued across a log bridging a deep chasm, where Hayes told Jimmy and the others to say back, and to run if he said to. Jimmy was unwilling, on the grounds that he wasn't a coward. Kong then emerged from a tunnel on the other side and killed Hayes just after he told Jimmy to go with Jack, who held Jimmy back as they were shaken into the pit below. When Jack woke up, he quickly came to Jimmy, who embraced the writer, who told him things would be okay. Unfortunately they were then faced with an onslaught of "giant bugs" from the depths, which took the lives of many of the survivors until Englehorn and Baxter came to rescue them and took them back to the village while Jack went to look for Ann.
When the two returned, Englehorn and Denham had a plan to capture Kong alive, and while Jimmy stood armed behind Denham, he neither took part in the operation, nor tried to stop it. When Kong broke free of his bonds and the Captain declared the mission a failure, Jimmy hurried back to the ship. With Kong chasing them down a long tunnel to the boats, Jimmy stood fast with his gun ready to take on the beast. Jack was able to get him into a whaler, where he stood up and kept his aim at the approaching Kong. He began to shout and fire on the beast, but Jack could not stop him in time before he angered the ape and he destroyed the boat. Jack saved the now unconscious Jimmy and paddled to the side of a rock to keep them afloat, and he presumably helped the crew sail back to New York.
Jimmy left the crew during World War II, when he joined the US Navy. He fought againts the Japanese in the Pacific Front.
Jimmy died in 2012 of old age.