Background

Beverley Cross on April 13, 1931, in London, City of London, United Kingdom to the family of theatre workers. His mother, Eileen Dale, was a dancer and actress, and his father, George Cross, was a theatrical manager.

Education

Beverley Cross graduated from a boarding school Pangbourne College. Later he studied at Balliol College of Oxford.

Career

After attending Pangbourne Nautical College, Cross enlisted in the Royal Naval Reserve, then worked in the Norwegian Merchant Navy before studying history at Balliol College, Oxford.

In 1953 Cross joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, but eventually decided against a career in acting. In 1956 he began work with the British Broadcasting Corporation as a production assistant for children’s television drama. The play made its debut in 1959, starring Michael Caine. In 1962, he translated Marc Camoletti's classic farce Boeing Boeing, which went on to have a lengthy and highly lucrative run in the West End.

In 1964, Cross directed the play in Sydney. Another of his successes was Half a Sixpence, a musical comedy based on the H.G. Wells novel Kipps. This opened in 1963 and, like his first play, ran in London for more than a year.

Cross also wrote opera librettos for Richard Rodney Bennett (The Mines of Sulphur, All the King's Men and Victory) and Nicholas Maw (The Rising of the Moon). Cross later became well known for his screenplays, notably Jason and the Argonauts, The Long Ships, Genghis Khan, and Clash of the Titans. He also adapted Half a Sixpence for the screen.

He also worked uncredited on the script for Lawrence of Arabia, although it is doubtful whether any of his material made it to the final edit. He died in London in 1998, after treatment for a series of aneurysms, three weeks and three days before his 67th birthday.

Achievements

• Professionally, Beverley Cross was probably best known for his first play, ''One More River,'' which opened in 1959, and for the boisterous musical comedy ''Half a Sixpence'' of 1963.

Works

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  • Boeing-Boeing

    (The English language adaptation, translated by Beverley C...)

    1960
  • Scarlet Pimpernel

    (First performed in 1903, The Scarlet Pimpernel was the mo...)

    1988
  • Happy Birthday

    (Bernard has foolishly asked his mistress, Brigit, to his ...)

    1980
  • The rising of the moon : an opera in three acts.

    (The Rising of the Moon is an operatic comedy in three act...)

    1970
  • Half a Sixpence

    (Half a Sixpence is a musical comedy based on the 1905 nov...)

    1963
  • The Nightwalkers

    (A young student comes to Paris in search of adventure and...)

    1958
  • One more river

    (A play in three acts.)

    1958
  • Mars in Capricorn: An Adventure and an Experience 1955
  • Clash of the Titans 1981

Personality

Cross openly admitted being a jealous person.

Connections

Beverley Cross will be remembered for his long pursuit of actress Maggie Smith, who became his third wife in 1975. The two met in 1952 at a student revue at Oxford, where Cross was an undergraduate. Cross married a contemporary from Oxford, Elizabeth Clunies-Ross, but he never forgot Ms. Smith, who was cast in his second play, ''Strip the Willow,'' in 1960. Hopelessly in love, Cross made his feelings clear in the first stage direction he wrote for Ms. Smith's character: ''She is about 25 and very beautiful. As elegant and sophisticated as a top international model. A great sense of fun. A marvelous girl.'' The two had an affair while Cross waited for his divorce to come through, but fate intervened again. Urged on by Cross, Smith joined Laurence Olivier's new National Theater at the Old Vic, only to fall in love with a fellow actor, Robert Stephens, whom she married. Cross was filled, he said later, with murderous hatred for Stephens, and later married a model, Gayden Collins.

But in 1975, Smith's tempestuous marriage to Stephens ended. After their divorce, Cross obtained his own divorce and married Smith in a civil ceremony at the Greenwich registry office. In his entry in Who's Who, he ignored his first two marriages and recorded only his third.

Beverley Cross has two daughters from the first marriage, a son from the second one and two stepsons from the third.

Father:

George Cross

Mother:

Eileen Dale

Wife:

Elizabeth Clunies-Ross

Wife:

Gayden Collins

Wife:

Maggie Smith

stepson:

Toby Stephens

stepson:

Chris Larkin

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166 This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.
  1998