Personal details
Born:
- Birthday: 1947-12-16
- Born Place: London, England, UK
Deathday:
2020-08-18
Also Known As:
벤 크로스, Harry Bernard Cross
Ben Cross
Ben Cross was a distinguished British stage, film, and television actor best known for his portrayal of the Jewish Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire (1981). Born Harry Bernard Cross in London on December 16, 1947, he came from a working-class Catholic family and pursued various manual jobs before entering the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). His career breakthrough came on the stage in 1978 when he played the cunning lawyer Billy Flynn in the original London production of the musical Chicago, which led directly to his casting in Chariots of Fire. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he maintained a versatile international career across television and film, starring in miniseries like The Flame Trees of Thika (1981), The Far Pavilions (1984), playing the villainous Prince Malagant in First Knight (1995), and portraying the vampire Barnabas Collins in the 1991 revival of Dark Shadows. In his later career, he was widely recognized by a new generation for playing the Vulcan Sarek, Spock's father, in J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of Star Trek, and as the ruthless Ukrainian gangster Mr. Rabbit in the TV series Banshee. Cross continued working actively until his death from cancer on August 18, 2020, at the age of 72; his final film role was the posthumously released Cardinal Matthews in the 2022 horror movie Prey for the Devil, connecting him to the cast previously discussed.
