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 spent much of the 1970s and 80s appearing on the small screen as a regular on several short-lived sitcoms, including "The Hot L Baltimore" (ABC, 1975), as the desk clerk hopelessly in love with Conchata Ferrell; "The Nancy Walker Show" (ABC, 1976), as Walker's son-in-law; "The Last Precinct" (NBC, 1986), as the deputy chief of police; "Easy Street" (NBC, 1986-87), as Dana Ivey's milquetoast husband; and "Mama's Boy" (NBC, 1987-88) as Bruce Weitz's friend. He also appeared in a number of failed pilots, TV-movies and miniseries, notably "Once an Eagle" (NBC, 1976-77), "A Christmas Without Snow" (CBS, 1980), John Frankenheimer's HBO remake of "The Rainmaker" (1982) and as the villain in the Disney TV remake of "The Shaggy Dog" (ABC, 1994).
On the big screen, Cromwell made his debut in the Robert Moore-directed "Murder By Death" (1976), scripted by Neil Simon and reteamed with Moore and Simon for "The Cheap Detective" (1978). He created the role of Mr. Skolnick in "Revenge of the Nerds" (1984) and reprised it in the feature sequel ("Revenge of the Nerds II" 1987) and in two TV sequels on the Fox network ("Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation" 1992, and "Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds In Love" 1994). In Arthur Hiller's "The Babe" (1992), Cromwell was a monk who befriends the young Babe Ruth and introduces him to baseball, while in Chris Noonan's "Babe" (1995), he was Farmer Hoggett, a gentle shepherd who recognizes the special qualities of a piglet adept at herding sheep. For the latter role, he received a 1995 Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Cromwell went on to co-star as banker Charles Keating in Milos Foreman's biopic "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) and as a corrupt police chief in Curtis Hanson's superior "L.A. Confidential" (1997).
Returning to a softer mode, the actor was cast as an Appalachian mountain man raising his part Native American grandson in the family drama "The Education of Little Tree" (also 1997) and reprised his role as Farmer Hoggett in the sequel "Babe: Pig in the City" (1998). The following year he was seen in no less than four high-profile TV and feature film projects. He played a cold-hearted Army captain whose troubled soldier daughter is found dead in the big-screen adaptation of Nelson DeMille's novel "The General's Daughter" and earned an Emmy nomination for his deft portrayal of William Randolph Hearst in RKO 281, the critically acclaimed HBO drama about the making of Orson Welles' 1941 classic "Citizen Kane". Also in 1999, Cromwell had the pivotal role of a judge overseeing a murder trial in the Ethan Hawke weeper "Snow Falling on Cedars" and had a small part as a private detective in the TNT crime drama "A Slight Case of Murder". The actor followed those projects up by appearing in the live televised version of the Cold War thriller "Fail Safe" opposite George Clooney and Richard Dreyfuss (CBS) and supporting Clint Eastwood, James Garner and Tommy Lee Jones in the astronaut drama "Space Cowboys" (both 2000).
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.
Copyright © Baseline 2006.