James Cromwell Biography

James Cromwell played kindly Farmer Hoggett in the 1995 George Miller movie Babe, winning an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor for the role. Cromwell was already a veteran character actor who had begun working in television in the early 1970s. He played Archie Bunker’s friend Stretch Cunningham on the sitcom All In the Family and made dozens of guest appearances in shows like M*A*S*H (with Alan Alda) and Three’s Company (with Suzanne Somers). He made his feature film debut in the 1976 spoof Murder by Death and worked steadily in character roles until his 1995 breakthrough in Babe. The tall, avuncular Cromwell followed up with a memorable role as a dirty police captain in director Curtis Hanson‘s L. A. Confidential (1997, starring Russell Crowe). He also appeared in The General’s Daughter (1999, starring John Travolta) and played prison wardens in The Green Mile (1999, starring Tom Hanks) and The Longest Yard (2005, with Adam Sandler). He has continued to work steadily on TV, most notably with recurring roles in the medical drama E.R. and the HBO series Six Feet Under.