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James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940), sometimes credited as Jamie Cromwell, is an American film and television actor. He has been nominated for an Oscar, two Emmy Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards during his career. He started doing TV in 1974, gaining some notice in a recurring role as Archie Bunker's buddy Stretch Cunningham in "All in the Family" (1971), made his film debut in 1976, and goes back to the stage periodically. Some of his more noted film roles have been in Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and the surprise hit about a charming pig, Babe (1995). He garnered some of the best reviews of his career - many of which said he should have received an Oscar - for his role as a corrupt, conniving police captain in L.A. Confidential (1997). This tall, lanky son of actors John Cromwell and Kay Johnson originally intended to be a mechanical engineer before a summer on a movie set with his father changed his mind. After attending Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) for a year, James Cromwell dropped out and spent ten years working in regional theater as an actor and director, appearing in such shows as "The Iceman Cometh" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, "Beckett" at the Cleveland Playhouse and "Othello" at the American Shakespeare Festival. He has appeared frequently at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A. and it was during a run there that he was spotted and cast in the 1974 recurring role of Jerome 'Stretch' Cunningham, the much talked about co-worker of Archie Bunker on the CBS sitcom "All in the Family". Cromwell was born in Los Angeles, California and was raised in Manhattan, New York. His mother was actress Kay Johnson and his father was actor, director and producer John Cromwell, who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He was educated at The Hill School, Middlebury College and Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he studied engineering. Like both his parents, he was drawn to the theater, doing everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays. His first television performance was in a 1974 episode of The Rockford Files playing Terry. A few weeks later, he had a brief recurring role as Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family. In 1975 he took his first lead role on television as Bill Lewis in the short-lived Hot L Baltimore, and a year later made his film debut in Neil Simon's classic detective spoof Murder by Death. While he continued with regular television work for the rest of the 1980s, he made real inroads in movie business for his roles in the James Garner-Shirley Jones film Tank, as a corrupt deputy sheriff and his first appearance as Mr. Skolnick, father of main character Lewis in the comedy film Revenge of the Nerds. He would reprise this role three more times in each of the "Nerds" sequels. His notable film roles in the 1990s include his Oscar nominated performance as Farmer Arthur Hoggett in Babe (1995) and Captain Dudley Liam Smith in Curtis Hanson's film adaptation of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential (1997), which was a breakout role for him, and made him more bankable in Hollywood. He also played Dr. Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and the Star Trek: Enterprise pilot Broken Bow (the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" later reused some of the First Contact footage). He has appeared on other Star Trek television series The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though not as Cochrane (his appearances on these shows predated his role in First Contact), he guest starred in episodes including "The Hunted", "Birthright, Part I and II" and "Starship Down". In 2001, Cromwell enjoyed a run on the small screen beginning with an Emmy-nominated turn as a dying bishop in a story arc on NBC's popular medical serial "ER". He subsequently co-starred in the A&E adaptation of "The Magnificent Ambersons" before undertaking the title role in the short-lived CBS fall drama "Citizen Baines", about a former US Senator adjusting to life back in his home state. Cromwell, an outspoken actor who would take stances on various social and political issues, continued in a political vein on screen as well, playing the president in the Tom Clancy military thriller "The Sum of All Fears" (2002) and Lyndon Baines Johnson in the cable biopic "RFK" (2002). The actor continued to leapfrog successfully between high-profile film and television projects, including as a scientist in the sci-fi thriller "I, Robot" (2004) and as a warden in Adam Sandler's remake of "The Longest Yard" (2005), and in the acclaimed HBO miniseries "Angels in America" (2003) and the TV remake of the horror classic "Salem's Lot" (2004). In 2004 Cromwell enjoyed another career-defining role when he took on the role of "Six Feet Under's" much-married professor George Sibley, who weds the Fisher family matriarch Ruth without revealing his dark secret. The actor stayed with the series through its final season. He was next cast in the highly anticipated sequel "Spider-Man 3" (lensed 2006) as the police captain George Stacy--who in the comics was the doomed father of the web-slinger's equally ill-fated paramour Gwen Stacy. He co-starred in the last two seasons of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under, where he played George Sibley, Ruth Fisher's geologist husband and along with the rest of the his castmates, he was nominated for two consecutive Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2005 and 2006. He next co-starred alongside Dame Helen Mirren who plays the title role of Queen Elizabeth II and won the Oscar for Best Actress in Stephen Frears' film The Queen (2006) where he played Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He guest starred in the sixth season of 24 where he played Phillip Bauer, father of lead character Jack played by Kiefer Sutherland. In early October 2007, he played the lead role of James Tyrone Sr. in the Druid Theatre Company's production of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, at the Gaiety in Dublin as part of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival's 50th Anniversary. He has three children and has been married twice. Cromwell is known for his unusually tall stature; he stands at 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m), making him the tallest person to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. His height, however, has not prevented him from becoming a prolific actor in a wide variety of leading and supporting roles. He has long been an advocate of leftist causes. In the late 1960s he was a member of "The Committee to Defend The Panthers", a group organized to defend 13 members of the Black Panther Party who had been imprisoned in New York on charges of conspiracy. All thirteen were eventually released. In a 2004 interview with CNN.com, Cromwell praised the Panthers. He became a vegetarian in 1974 after seeing a stockyard in Texas and experiencing the "smell, terror and anxiety." He became an ethical vegan while playing the character of Farmer Hoggett in the movie Babe in 1995. He frequently speaks out on issues regarding animal cruelty for PETA, largely the treatment of pigs. |
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