James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American film and television actor who is well known for playing Arthur Haggurt in the 1995 film Babe.
He voiced Professor Robert Callaghan in the 2014 Disney animated feature, Big Hero 6. He also played Charlie 'the Robber' Mulvihill in the 1994 remake of The Shaggy Dog, Dr. Lionel Canter in Surrogates, Admiral Rothman in The Rescue and Ogden Phipps in Secretariat.
Biography and career[]
James Cromwell was born in Los Angeles to actress Kay Johnson and noted film director John Cromwell. He has English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. James attended school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, he attended Carnegie-Mellon University, studying acting. Like his parents, Cromwell was drawn to the theater, performing in everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays.
Among his film appearances, he played three American Presidents (former President D. Wire Newman in The West Wing, President Robert Fowler in The Sum of All Fears, and President George H.W. Bush in W.), as well as three separate Star Trek series, where he played the part of Dr. Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive. He is also the only actor in the history of the Star Trek franchise to utter the actual words "Star Trek" on screen (in 1996's Star Trek: First Contact).
Cromwell also appeared in the film L.A. Confidential as a corrupt LAPD captain. Kiefer Sutherland, who plays his son, Jack Bauer in Day 6, played Jack Vincennes in the failed TV pilot spun off from that film. Cromwell also had principal roles in films like The Green Mile (with Doug Hutchison and Brent Briscoe) and Space Cowboys (with William Devane, Alex Kuznetsov, Rade Serbedzija and Kiefer's real-life father Donald Sutherland). However, Cromwell is best known for portraying the farmer in the movie Babe, a role for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Fellow 24 actors Colm Feore, Joel Bissonnette, Eugene Lazarev and Antonio David Lyons appeared with Cromwell in the 2002 film The Sum of All Fears.
Cromwell is a vegan and protests for the cause regularly.
Selected filmography[]
- Soldiers of Fortune (2012)
- Cowgirls n' Angels (2012)
- Hide Away (2011)
- The Artist (2011)
- Memorial Day (2011)
- Secretariat (2010)
- Surrogates (2009)
- A Lonely Place for Dying (2008)
- W. (2008)
- Spider-Man 3 (2007)
- The Queen (2006)
- The Longest Yard (2005)
- I, Robot (2004)
- The Sum of All Fears (2002)
- Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (voice) (2002)
- Space Cowboys (2000)
- The Green Mile (1999)
- RKO 281 (1999)
- Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)
- The General's Daughter (1999)
- Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
- Deep Impact (1998)
- Species 2 (1998)
- L.A. Confidential (1997)
- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
- The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
- Eraser (1996)
- Babe (1995)
- Romeo is Bleeding (1993)
- The Babe (1992)
- Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
Television appearances
- Boardwalk Empire (2012)
- American Horror Story: Asylum (2012)
- My Own Worst Enemy (2008)
- 24 (2007)
- Six Feet Under (2003-2005)
- The West Wing (2004)
- Angels in America (2003)
- Enterprise (2001)
- Citizen Baines (2001)
- ER (2001)
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1995)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993)
- Life Goes On (1990)
- China Beach (1988)
- Dallas (1984)
- Little House on the Prairie (1980)
- Three's Company (1977)
- M*A*S*H* (1977)
- All in the Family (1974)
- The Rockford Files (1974)