Early life
Fox was born in London, the son of theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and the film producer Robert Fox. His maternal grandfather was playwright Frederick Lonsdale. Like several members of the Fox family, he attended Harrow School. After leaving Harrow, Fox took a short service commission in the Coldstream Guards.
Career
Early career
Fox first appeared on film in The Miniver Story in 1950. His early screen appearances, both in film and TV, were made under his birth name, William Fox.
In 1962, he was working in a bank when Tony Richardson offered him a minor role in the film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Fox’s father attempted to forbid this, claiming that his son had no talent for acting and that it would disrupt his life for him to give up his job in the bank; nevertheless, Fox took the part.
During the 1960s, Fox gained popularity. In 1964, he won a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in The Servant (1963).
On 16 June 1965, Ken Annakin’s Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines was released. In this British period comedy film, Fox is featured among an international ensemble cast including Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Robert Morley, Terry-Thomas, Red Skelton, Benny Hill, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Gert Fröbe and Alberto Sordi. The film, revolving around the craze of early aviation circa 1910, is about a pompous newspaper magnate (Morley) who is convinced by his daughter (Miles) and fiancée (Fox), a young army officer, and they organize an air race from London to Paris, where he decides to race. A large sum of money is offered to the winner, attracting a variety of characters to participate. The film received positive reviews, being described as funny, colourful and clever, and as capturing the early enthusiasm for aviation. It was treated as a major production, one of only three full-length 70 mm Todd-AO Fox releases in 1965 with an intermission and musical interlude part of the original screenings. Because of the Todd-AO process, the film was an exclusive roadshow feature initially shown in deluxe Cinerama venues, where customers needed reserved seats purchased ahead of time. The film grossed $31,111,111 theatrically and on home video $29,950,000. Audience reaction, both in first release and even today, is nearly universal in assessing the film as one of the “classic” aviation films.
Some of the other films he acted in during this time are King Rat (1965), The Chase (1966), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Isadora (1968), and Performance (1970).
Spiritual life and break from acting
After finishing work on Performance (1970), Fox suspended his acting career. Released in 1970, the film co-starring James Fox and Mick Jagger was deemed so outrageous that critics at a preview screening walked out, with one film executive’s wife reportedly throwing up in the cinema.
In a 2008 interview, he said: “It was just part of my journey…I think my journey was to spend a while away from acting. And I never lost contact with it â watching movies, reading about it … so I didn’t feel I missed it.”
He became an evangelical Christian, working with the Navigators and devoting himself to the ministry. During this time, the only film in which Fox appeared was No Longer Alone (1978), the story of Joan Winmill Brown, a suicidal woman who was led to faith in Jesus Christ by Ruth Bell Graham.
Return to acting
After an absence from acting of several years, Fox appeared on TV in the Play for Today “Country” by Trevor Griffiths, a comedy drama set against the 1945 UK parliamentary elections. On film he starred in Stephen Poliakoff’s Runners (1983), A Passage to India (1984), and Comrades (1986). He was notable as Anthony Blunt in the acclaimed BBC play by Alan Bennett, A Question of Attribution (1992). He also portrayed the character of Lord Holmes in Patriot Games (1992), as well as Colonel Ferguson in Farewell to the King and the Nazi-sympathising aristocrat Lord Darlington in The Remains of the Day (1993).
More recently he has appeared in the 2000 film Sexy Beast, the 2001 adaptation of The Lost World as Prof. Leo Summerlee, Agatha Christie’s Poirot â Death on the Nile (2004) as Colonel Race and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) playing Mr. Salt, Veruca Salt’s father. He appeared in the Doctor Who audio drama Shada, and in 2007, he guest-starred in the British television crime series Waking the Dead. He also appeared opposite his son Laurence Fox in “Allegory of Love”, an episode in the third series of Lewis. He was part of the cast of Sherlock Holmes, as Sir Thomas, leading member of a freemason-like secret society.
In 2010, he filmed Cleanskin, a terrorist thriller directed by Hadi Hajaig, and in 2011 he played King George V in Madonna‘s film W.E.
Personal life
He married Mary Elizabeth Piper in September 1973, with whom he has five children: actors Laurence, Lydia, and sons Jack, Robin and Thomas. Laurence married actress Billie Piper in 2007; they divorced in 2016. Lydia Fox is married to actor Richard Ayoade.