Palm Beach Intl Film Festival

When your career resume ranges from playing English royalty to an American patriarchal President, with a corrupt police captain and a Scottish pig farmer thrown in for good measure, you know you are talking about someone with a great range. That quality to perfectly personify a host of different types is the hallmark of great character actors. Among the best applying their craft to numerous film and television projects is the actor James Cromwell, who will be honored this evening with a Career Achievement Award at the 14th Palm Beach International Film Festival.

James Cromwell was born in Los Angeles, California but raised in New York City. He was born into a theatrical family. His mother was actress Kay Johnson and his father was actor, director and producer John Cromwell, who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Like both his parents, the young Cromwell was drawn to the theater, where he played a variety of roles from Shakespeare to experimental plays. His theater work led him to television where he played recurring characters in such classic television series of the 1970s as THE ROCKFORD FILES, ALL IN THE FAMILY and LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. He also made his film debut in the classic Neil Simon detective spoof MURDER BY DEATH.

 For the gangly actor (who stands 6’7” tall), romantic leads were never in the cards. However, his imposing physical presence and strong-featured face made him a go-to character actor who had the ability to disappear into his characters. After starring as the father in the REVENGE OF THE NERDS films in the 1980s, Cromwell won the role of a sympathetic farmer in the family film BABE (1995), in a memorable role that actually won him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His follow up role as a corrupt police detective in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997) demonstrated his incredible range.  

Cromwell has worked both the big and small screen, finding roles that suited his sensibilities. In the television film RKO 281 which chronicled the making of the classic Orson Welles film CITIZEN KANE, he received an Emmy nomination for his role as the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. His guest starring stints on such popular television dramas as ER, THE WEST WING and, most notably, SIX FEET UNDER, brought him further recognition and a slew of awards and honors.

In the past two years, Cromwell was widely praised for his work in two important film projects. He played the unpleasant Prince Phillip, starring alongside Oscar winner Helen Mirren, in the Stephen Frears-directed THE QUEEN. He followed that by taking on the role of the patrician George Herbert Walker Bush in Oliver Stone’s biopic W. He also courted a new audience by appearing in SPIDERMAN 3 as the New York police chief. His next role is ironically another iconic U.S. President. He will portray Lyndon Baines Johnson in the film FLYING INTO LOVE, which chronicles the assassination of John F. Kennedy, as seen through the eyes of his wife Jacqueline.

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor