Brian Cox

Biography

Back when he was young and painfully ambitious, Brian Cox was advised that he should forget about fame and concentrate instead on becoming a great actor. If he managed that, he was told, then the fame would inevitably come. Well, he did, and it has.

Two things are amazing about this. First, that his mentor was none other than Fulton McKay, known to most as the militaristic prison guard who so enjoyed bullying Ronnie Barker in Porridge. Second, that it should have taken Cox so long to achieve genuine Hollywood recognition. He'd been renowned in British theatre and on Broadway for decades, he'd been a cult star for his original portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann's Manhunter, but it wasn't until his mid-fifties that he really broke through in films. When he did, it was with a phenomenal run of hits - first sleeper hit The Rookie, then The Bourne Identity, The Ring, Adaptation, 25th Hour and then an entry into blockbusters with X-Men 2. And once there, he would stay there. Playing Agamemnon to Brad Pitt's Achilles in Wolfgang Petersen's Troy could hardly damage a fellow's profile, after all.

For Cox, more than most actors, it has been a hard and strange road. He was born Brian Denis Cox in Dundee on the 1st of June, 1946. His family was of Irish extraction, his ancestors having come to Scotland in the mid-1800s to seek employment in the new manufacturing industries and escape the Potato Famine. His father, Charles (known as Chic) was a weaver, his mother Mary was a spinner in the mills. There was no theatrical background here at all, Brian's later calling being a fluke of nature. As he himself told Radio 4: "I just think I sprang from my mother's womb as a performer, even my birth was dramatic. I was a double breach, apparently, and I came out (with) my own umbilical cord around my neck. There was nothing very quiet about it! You know, massive attention seeker from the off".