Ben Cross

Ben Cross
	;
Key Information
Character	Mr. Rabbit
First episode	"Pilot"
Last episode	"Bullets and Tears"
Birthdate	December 16, 1947
Birthplace	London, England, UK

Harry Bernard Cross was a British actor. He played the character Mr. Rabbit on Banshee and joined the first season and remained as a starring cast member in the second season.

He was known for his role as Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows from 1997. He also appear in Star Trek (2009), War, Inc. (2009) and Exorcist: The Beginning (2004).

Biography[]

Early life[]

Cross was born Harry Bernard Cross in London to a working class Irish 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 grammar school plays – most notably playing Jesus in a school pageant at age 12. Cross was educated at Devonport High School for Boys, a grammar school in Plymouth, Devon, but was bullied by a teacher and left home at age 15.

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 (RADA) - the alma mater of actors such as John Gielgud, Glenda Jackson and Anthony Hopkins, but later expressed little interest in pursuing the classical route.

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, Prince of Tyre, Twelfth Night, and Royal Hunt of the Sun. Cross also joined the cast in 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.

His 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, he 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' 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[]

During Cross' performance in Chicago, he was recognised and recommended for a leading role in the multiple Academy Award-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.

His 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 (Ash) 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 ('Don't leave home without it') 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, he 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 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 (Honey Sweet Love); 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, becomes a Zionist and ends up an Israeli major general in the 1989 NBC film Twist of Fate.

Other professions[]

Cross was a director, writer and musician as well. He wrote music, screenplays and articles for English language publications and also wrote 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 lived all over the world, including London, Los Angeles, New York, southern Spain, Vienna, and, most recently, Sofia, Bulgaria. He was familiar with the Spanish, Italian, and German languages and enrolled in a course studying Bulgarian.

Credits[]

Starring[]

Season one credits
Pilot	The Rave	Meet the New Boss	Half Deaf Is Better Than All Dead	The Kindred
Wicks	Behold a Pale Rider	We Shall Live Forever	Always the Cowboy	A Mixture of Madness

Season two credits
Little Fish	The Thunder Man	The Warrior Class	Bloodlines	The Truth About Unicorns
Firekeeper	Ways to Bury a Man	Evil for Evil	Homecoming	Bullets and Tears

Origins[]

Origins season 1
Olek Drops a Dime	A Thief, Not a Killer	Carrie at the Gate	Looking for My Exit	Sugar's Release	The Forge
Siobhan Interrupted	Kings and Pawns	Checking In	Carrie and Deva	The Women	Passed Over	The Real Lucas Hood

Origins season 2
Hotwire	Allenwood Part 1	Interrogation Part 1	Interrogation Part 2	Interrogation Part 3	The Phone Call
The Diner	The Person You Were Meant to Be	Allenwood Part 2	Brothers	The Priest	The Field