James Keane (born September 26,^[1] 1952) is an American film and television actor. He is known for playing the role of Willis Thomas Bell in the American drama television series The Paper Chase.^[2]

Keane was born in Buffalo, New York.^[3] He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.^[4]

Keane began his career in 1975, appearing in the film Three Days of the Condor playing a store clerk. Between acting jobs, he was an elevator operator at the Sherry-Netherland hotel in New York, where he met film director, Francis Ford Coppola.^[4] Keane thought that he might get a role in The Godfather Part II until he realized that shooting was to be in Sicily.^[4]

In 1978 Keane joined the cast of the new CBS drama television series The Paper Chase as the law student Willis Thomas Bell.^[4] He also appeared in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, and was hired to overdub some of Marlon Brando’s lines in the television miniseries of The Godfather.^[4] Keane appeared in the 1982 film 48 Hrs. (as Detective Van Zant, and the 1990 film Dick Tracy as Dick Tracy's second-in-command Pat Patton.^[3]