James Cromwell

Born: 27 January 1940
Where: Los Angeles, California, USA

The lanky star is familiar to audiences in Britain and America for his portrayal of Farmer Arthur Hoggett who befriends the piglet Babe.

For Babe, he received a 1995 Oscar nomination for best supporting actor - he reprised it for the sequel Babe: Pig In The City.

The son of actors, he originally wanted to be a mechanical engineer before a summer on a movie set with his father changed his mind.

He dropped out of university and spent 10 years working in regional theatre.

Cromwell spent much of the 1970s and 80s appearing as a regular on sitcoms as well as a number of failed pilots, TV movies and mini-series.

On the big screen, he made his debut in the Robert Moore-directed Murder By Death, scripted by Neil Simon and re-teamed with them for The Cheap Detective.

He created the role of Mr Skolnick in Revenge Of The Nerds and reprised it in the feature sequel and two TV sequels.

In Arthur Hiller's The Babe, Cromwell was a monk who befriends the young Babe Ruth, while in Chris Noonan's Babe, he was a farmer who spots a piglet adept at herding sheep.

Ironically, as a keen vegetarian, he was once arrested for trespass after attending a rally against the Wendy burger chain.

Cromwell went on to appear in The People vs Larry Flynt and to play a corrupt police chief in LA Confidential.

He was also the only actor to speak the words "Star Trek" when he appeared in the feature Star Trek: First Contact.

In 1999 he was seen as a cold-hearted army captain whose troubled daughter is found dead in The General's Daughter.

He also played a judge overseeing a murder trial in the Ethan Hawke weepy Snow Falling on Cedars and a fellow warder of Tom Hanks in The Green Mile

Cromwell played a supporting role to Clint Eastwood, James Garner and Tommy Lee Jones in astronaut drama Space Cowboys.

He voiced the Colonel in Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron and also appeared as the US President in Ben Affleck starrer The Sum Of All Fears.

Recent work has seen him in England playing the stuffy Torquay bowls champion Ray Speight in Mel Smith's lacklustre Blackball.

Upcoming projects include the sci-fi thriller I, Robot with Will Smith and Bridget Moynohan.