Beverley Cross

Beverley Cross (13 April 1931 - 20 March 1998) was an English playwright and screenwriter. He was born into a theatrical family, and started off by writing children's plays in the 1950s. He achieved instant success with his debut play One More River, which dealt with a mutiny in which a crew puts its first officer on trial for manslaughter. The play made its debut in 1959, starring Michael Caine. Cross' second play Strip the Willow was to make a ... more

Beverley Cross (13 April 1931 - 20 March 1998) was an English playwright and screenwriter. He was born into a theatrical family, and started off by writing children's plays in the 1950s. He achieved instant success with his debut play One More River, which dealt with a mutiny in which a crew puts its first officer on trial for manslaughter. The play made its debut in 1959, starring Michael Caine. Cross' second play Strip the Willow was to make a star out of his future wife Dame Maggie Smith, even though the play was staged only in the provinces, never receiving a London production. 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. He even directed the play in Sydney in 1964. 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 later became well known for his... less