James Cromwell has become a fairly familiar presence in Savannah.
The lanky 73-year old actor was a special guest for the 2011 SFF, and he received an honorary doctorate from SCAD in 2012. At least one of his kids attended SCAD.
Cromwell also turned up at a December 2012 gala at Savannah Tech honoring Stratton Leopold.
Back in 2010, Cromwell headlined a gala raising money for the WW II memorial on River Street.
I remember Cromwell quite vividly from my childhood — I was utterly fascinated by his role as Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family. I’ve loved his work in many projects since then, but I found him especially riveting in The General’s Daughter, which was co-produced by Leopold.
Now Cromwell has been arrested. From the Mail Online’s Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell, 73, is arrested for bursting into a board meeting at University of Wisconsin-Madison to protest against ‘cat torture carried out in their labs’:
James Cromwell has been arrested after bursting into a board meeting at the University of Wisconsin and claiming the school tortures cats for scientific research.
The actor is most famous for playing Farmer Arthur Hoggett in Babe, the film adaptation of Dick King-Smith’s beloved novel The Sheep-Pig.
Cromwell was accompanied on the protest by PETA spokesperson Jeremy Beckham.
In a video posted online by PETA, Cromwell and Beckham are seen ambushing the meeting in a classroom while shouting and holding up signs.
A disturbing image on the signs shows a cat in a UW-Madison laboratory with metal implanted in its head.
Cromwell can be heard shouting: ‘This is not science. This is torture. This is criminal.’
Here’s video of the protest:
Thanks to James Cromwell for being willing to take such a public and powerful stand on the issue of animal rights.