Ben Cross is an English actor of the stage and screen, known for his
portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film
Chariots of Fire. Early life
Cross was born Harry Bernard Cross in London to a working class Catholic
family. His mother was a cleaning woman and his father a doorman and nurse. He
began acting at a very young age and participated in school plays. Cross was
educated at Bishop Thomas Grant secondary modern school in Streatham,
South London. Early work
Cross initially worked in various jobs including work as a window cleaner,
waiter and joiner. He was master carpenter for the Welsh National Opera
and property master at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.
In 1970 at the age of 22, he was accepted into London's Royal Academy of
Dramatic Arts - the alma mater of actors such as John Gielgud, Glenda Jackson and
Anthony Hopkins, but later expressed little interest in pursuing the
classical route. He also appeared as a CI5 agent in an episode of The
Professionals After graduation from RADA, Cross
performed in several stage plays at Duke's Playhouse where he was seen in
Macbeth, The Importance of Being Earnest and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
He then joined the Prospect Theatre Company and played roles in Pericles,
Twelfth Night, and Royal Hunt of the Sun. Cross also joined the cast of the
immensely popular musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and played
leading roles in Sir Peter Shaffer's Equus, Mind Your Head and the musical
Irma La Douce – all at Leicester's Haymarket Theatre.
Cross's first big screen film appearance came in 1976 when he went on location to
Deventer, Netherlands, to play Trooper Binns in Joseph E. Levine's World War II
epic A Bridge Too Far which starred an international cast, including Dirk
Bogarde, Sean Connery, Michael Caine and James Caan.
In 1977, Cross became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed
in the premier of Privates on Parade as "Kevin Cartwright" and played Rover in a
revival of a Restoration play titled Wild Oats. Cross's path to international
stardom began in 1978 with his performance in the play Chicago in which
he played Billy Flynn, the slick lawyer of murderess Roxie Hart.
1980s–1990s In 1980 he appeared in the TV series The
Professionals as undercover operative 'Stuart' in the episode Black Out.
During Cross's performance in Chicago, he was recognised and recommended for a
leading role in the multiple Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire. For
their performances in the film, Cross and his co-star Ian Charleson both won
"Most Promising Artiste of 1981" awards from the Variety Club Awards in February
1982. Cross's starring role in Chariots of
Fire has been credited with continuing a transatlantic trend in elegant young
English actors that had been set by Jeremy Irons in Brideshead Revisited,
and was followed by Rupert Everett in Dance with a Stranger, Rupert Graves in
A Room With a View, and Hugh Grant in Maurice.
Cross followed up Chariots of Fire with performances as a Scottish physician, Dr
Andrew Mason, struggling with the politics of the British medical system
during the 1920s, in The Citadel, a 10-part BBC dramatisation of A.J.
Cronin's novel, and as Ashton Pelham-Martyn, a British cavalry officer
torn between two cultures in the ITV miniseries The Far Pavilions.
In 1982, the U.S. union Actors' Equity, in a landmark reversal of a previous
ruling, allowed Cross to appear in John Guare's off-Broadway play Lydie Breeze.
The decision was tied to a joint effort by Actors' Equity, the League of New
York Theatres and the British union Equity to allow British and U.S. actors
unrestricted opportunities to work in both countries. The agreement eventually
led to regular equal exchange agreements for equivalent acting jobs between
London and New York. During the 1984 Summer Olympic Games,
Cross appeared in a commercial for American Express with the 87-year-old
Jackson Scholz, a sprinter for the 1924 American Olympic team whose character
was featured in the film Chariots of Fire. When Cross says something about
beating Scholz, the latter remarks, "You didn't beat me!" with mock indignation.
Proving he is 'still pretty fast', Scholz beats Cross to the draw in
picking up the tab with his credit card. He subsequently replaced James Garner as
the featured actor endorsing the Polaroid Spectra camera in 1986. Cross
was also featured in GQ Magazine as one of the annual "Manstyle" winners in
January, 1985 followed by a featured photo shoot in March, 1985.
In 1985, he played Barney Greenwald in a hit revival of Herman Wouk's courtroom
drama The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at the Queen's Theatre, London.
In a 1985 interview the actor admitted he preferred American roles because of
their emotionalism, saying of English acting: 'Over here, people hide behind
mannerism and technique and don't come up with any soul. American actors are
much freer with the emotions. It's pretty hard in Europe not to have
experience of Americans because we're exposed to a lot of American product.'
Cross also said that he was sympathetic to the American dream of success: 'I am
ambitious. There's no point of being ashamed of the fact that one has
ambitions. Despite what a lot of people think in our profession, you can have
ambitions and still turn in good work and still earn a living. There's no
clash there.' Cross expressed the hope that his reputation would 'span the
Atlantic,' and that those in the industry would not ignore him because he
did not live in New York or Los Angeles. 'A prospective director would have to
convince me that I could bring something new, fresh and exciting to a classical
part that hundreds of other people have played,' he said.
Over the years, Cross has played Solomon in the 1997 Trimark Pictures production
Solomon; Captain Nemo in the 1997 CBS film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea;
vampire Barnabas Collins in the 1991 MGM miniseries remake of the cult classic
soap opera Dark Shadows; another vampire in the 1989 USA Network film Nightlife;
Sir Harold Pearson in the 1994 Italian production Caro Dolce Amore; Iraqi pilot
Munir Redfa blackmailed into flying a MiG from Iraq to Israel in the 1988 HBO
spy film Steal the Sky; and Nazi SS colonel and certified war criminal
Helmut von Schraeder, who has his face and voice surgically changed, poses as a
Jew in a concentration camp, then by twist of fate becomes a Zionist and ends
up an Israeli major general in the 1989 Ian Sharp's TV miniseries Twist of Fate,
also titled "Pursuit". 2000 to present
Cross played Ikey Solomon in the Australian production The Potato Factory
in 2000. In 2005, Cross, an anti-death penalty campaigner, starred as a
death-row prisoner in Bruce Graham's play, Coyote on a Fence, at the Duchess
Theatre. He played Rudolf Hess in the 2006 BBC production Nuremberg: Nazis on
Trial. In November 2007, Cross was cast in the
role of Sarek, in the new Star Trek film directed and produced by J.J. Abrams.
Cross spoke to Star Trek magazine following the film's release, saying,
'My agent put me forward for Star Trek, and he sent a couple of films to J.J..
I'm sure he was too busy to watch the whole of Species, but when we were on
the set, he mentioned to me that there was one particular shot in it where I
turned to the camera, and in that moment, it came to him how perfect it
would be for me to play Sarek.' In order to prepare for the role, Cross drew on
his experience as a parent as well as Sarek's previous on-screen appearances.
Having been present when his daughter was born, he was able to 'call on all
sorts of things' in the scene where Amanda has baby Spock, a scene which did
not make it into the theatrical cut of the film. While he found the emotionless
trait of a Vulcan a challenge to play, he found the father/son relationship
between Sarek and Spock easier to play. 'As Sarek, I had to be true to the
Vulcan cultural ethic, which in the beginning, I found very difficult. I got
a lot of help with that from J.J.. Dealing with the adult Spock was a much
more mature relationship, and I found the father/son aspect one of the easier
things to play.' In 2012, Cross was cast as Rabbit, the
main antagonist on the Cinemax original series Banshee. Rabbit is "a ruthless
Ukrainian gangster who has been hunting down two of his former top thieves for
15 years." Other professions
Cross is a director, writer and musician as well. He has written music,
screenplays and articles for English language publications and has also
written the lyrics for an album with Bulgarian singer Vasil Petrov, which was
released in late 2007. He also sang two Sinatra songs with Petrov in the
Apollonia Festival at the Black Sea in September 2007. Among many of his
original works is the musical Rage about Ruth Ellis, which was performed in
various regional towns in the London area. He also starred in it and played
the part of the hangman. Cross's first single as a lyricist was released by
Polydor Records in the late 1970s and was titled Mickey Moonshine. The nom de
guerre for the performance had occurred to Ben when he recalled an earlier
involvement with the music industry as a session singer for Decca between 1972
and 1974. At this time, he had recorded at a moment's notice an uptempo number
called 'Name it, You Got it', when the scheduled performer had failed to arrive
at the studio on time. Interestingly, this recording achieved some play on the
British Northern soul scene and Ben intends to reprise his performance as
Micky Moonshine at a forthcoming Northern event. Other works include The
Best We’ve Ever Had and Nearly Midnight, both written by Cross and directed by
his son Theo. In addition, the original soundtrack for Nearly Midnight was
written, produced and performed by his daughter Lauren. These works were
performed in Edinburgh in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Square One, directed by
Cross, was performed at the Etcetera Theatre in London in 2004.
Personal life Cross has lived all over the world,
including London, Los Angeles, New York, southern Spain, Vienna, and, most
recently, Sofia, Bulgaria. He is familiar with the Spanish, Italian, and
German languages and enrolled in a course studying Bulgarian.
He has been married twice: first to Penny, from 1977 to 1992, with whom he
has two children named Lauren and Theodore; and then to Michelle until
2005. In October of 2014 he became a
grandfather, with the birth of Lauren's daughter, Violet.
Filmography A Bridge Too Far
The Flame Trees of Thika Chariots of Fire
The Citadel The Far Pavilions
L'Attenzione The Assisi Underground
Paperhouse Steal the Sky
The Unholy The Jeweler's Shop
Nightlife Twist of Fate TV miniseries
Eye of the Widow Dark Shadows
Live Wire The Criminal Mind
Cold Sweat The Ascent
Temptress Caro dolce amore
First Knight El Último viaje de Robert Rylands
The Invader 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Corporate Ladder Turbulence
Solomon Tower of the Firstborn
The Venice Project The Order
Young Blades She Me and Her
Trial & Retribution Exorcist: The Beginning
Icon The Mechanik
Hannibal – Rome's Worst Nightmare Wicked Little Things
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing Nuremberg - Nazis on Trial
Finding Rin Tin Tin Species - The Awakening
When Nietzsche Wept War, Inc.
Lost City Raiders Hero Wanted
Star Trek William & Kate - TV film
Super Tanker - DVD Film A Common Man
Banshee Viking Quest - TV film
Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja References
External links Ben Cross at the Internet Movie Database
Ben Cross at the TCM Movie Database Ben Cross at AllMovie
Ben Cross at FEARnet