This tall, lanky son of actors John Cromwell and Kay Johnson originally intended to be a mechanical engineer before a summer on a movie set with his father changed his mind. After attending Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) for a year, James Cromwell dropped out and spent ten years working in regional theater as an actor and director, appearing in such shows as "The Iceman Cometh" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, "Beckett" at the Cleveland Playhouse and "Othello" at the American Shakespeare Festival. He has appeared frequently at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A.