Fox first appeared on film as eleven-year-old Toby Miniver in The Miniver Story in 1950.[3] His early screen appearances, both in film and television, were made under his birth name, William Fox.
He appeared in the film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962).[4] Fox's father purportedly attempted to forbid this, fearing his son would lose his job in the bank; nevertheless, Fox took the part.[5]
After finishing work on Performance (released 1970, but shot in 1968),[4] Fox suspended his acting career. The film, which starred Fox and Mick Jagger, was deemed so outrageous (at the time) that critics at a preview screening walked out, with one film executive's wife reportedly throwing up in the cinema.[3]
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 – watching movies, reading about it ... so I didn't feel I missed it."[9]
He became an evangelical Christian, working with the Navigators and devoting himself to the ministry.[10] During this time, the only film in which Fox appeared was No Longer Alone (1976), the story of Joan Winmill Brown,[11] a suicidal woman who was led to faith in Jesus Christ by Ruth Bell Graham.[11]
In 2010, he filmed Cleanskin, a terrorist thriller directed by Hadi Hajaig,[12] and in 2011 he played King George V in the Madonna written and directed film W.E.[13]
In 2013, he played a lead role alongside Natalie Dormer, in the movie A Long Way From Home.[3]
Personal life
Fox married Mary Elizabeth Piper in September 1973, with whom he has five children: four sons, Robin, Thomas, Laurence, Jack, and a daughter, Lydia. Piper died at their home on 19 April 2020.[2][14]
Through his daughter Lydia, his son-in-law is actor Richard Ayoade.[15] His former daughter-in-law is actress Billie Piper, who was married to his son Laurence from 2007 to 2016.[16][17]
^James M. Welsh, John C. Tibbetts, The Cinema of Tony Richardson: Essays and Interviews (1999), p. 119: "It was Richardson who gave James Fox his first part as the public school runner who wins the race, despite the fact that his friend, agent Robin Fox, was bitterly against it: "We only had one quarrel, when he forbade me to offer his son 'Willie' James Fox a small role in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, saying that his son had no talent and that for him to quit his job in a bank would be to disrupt his life."