What do you think?
Rate this book
Comeback: An Actor's Direction
The author depicts his career as a film actor and describes the changes in his life after conversion to Christianity
- GenresBiography
151 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1983
About the author
James Fox
10 booksJames Fox (born William Fox) is an English actor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fox
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fox
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 4, 2026
In the early 1970s, the young British actor and up-and-coming film star James Fox famously threw over his career for evangelical work among university students in the north of England, initially supporting himself with a mundane day job as a salesman for a telephone sanitising service. Fox’s eccentric decision is usually portrayed as some sort of nervous breakdown triggered by the disturbing nature of the film Performance - in which he had recently starred with Mick Jagger – due to which he had become ensnared by some “cult” (I’m sure I’ve read somewhere –incorrectly – that it was the Plymouth Brethren). This, though, is something of a myth, which has persisted despite the rather more measured and nuanced account provided by the man himself now more than forty year ago.
Comeback at first glance looks like a typical Hodder & Stoughton Christian memoir, and in the US the work was handled by the evangelical publisher Eerdmans. However, only the last few chapters are concerned with Fox’s religious conversion and what came after, and despite the book’s title his decision to return to acting is dealt with only at the very end. Readers who are interested primarily in an actor’s reminiscences can enjoy Fox’s account of his early life and career without fear of being “preached at”.
The surname Fox, of course, is synonymous with acting and theatreland. James’ father Robin was a theatrical agent whose roster included family friend Robert Morley; in due course Robin and Morley went into the production business together, partnering with Robin’s secretary Ros Chatto (the since much-reported intimacy between Robin and Chatto is not mentioned, perhaps because Chatto was still alive at the time). Two of Robin’s sons became actors, while the third (who died recently) was a theatrical producer, and the next generation has produced a whole crop of household names.
Fox had a couple of small roles in films as a child, but his parents were less than enthusiastic about his decision to take things further after schooling at Harrow by attending drama school in London – Fox writes that they were “resigned” to their son’s ambition. After a spell of national service in Kenya, Fox took a day job at Fortnum’s and then Marks & Spencer (his parents with friendly with the Sieffs) before Tony Richardson cast him in a small role in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (this was long before Richardson became James’s brother’s father-in-law). After some TV work (initially as “William Fox” – “James” is his middle name), Fox’s big break came with The Servant, opposite Dirk Bogarde. His career to took him to Hollywood, where he befriended Roget Vadim and Jane Fonda, and then Rome.
Fox’s conversion to Christianity came at the end of the 1960s, while he was staying in a hotel in Blackpool over Christmas during a theatrical production of Doctor in the House. In the breakfast room, he met a man named Bernie Marks, who engaged with him in discussions about the Bible. Marks found a receptive listener, but only in part because of Performance: while in Rome, Fox had already written in his diary about “the wasteful, evil life into which I have let myself fall”. The role of Performance was “to turn me from drugs as a means of self-discovery and spiritual discovery and from the free and uninhibited use of sex as a means of seeking permanent happiness”. He had already bought a New Testament six months before meeting Marks.
Marks was involved with an American organisation called the Navigators, and Fox went on to meet with American missionaries from the group in Manchester. At one point, he writes, he found himself “drawn into some teaching to do with certain experiences and gifts of the Holy Spirit”, but the comment is enigmatic and he also writes of building relationships with mainstream Anglican evangelicals at St Helen’s Church in Bishopsgate, where Rev Dick Lucas was the vicar. Fox is self-critical about some of his actions shortly after converting: he accuses himself of writing an “insensitive” letter breaking off contact with a friend, and of an uncaring self-righteousness.
Fox initially continued with theatre acting, but in Glasgow he was fired from a production after prioritising a Navigators conference over his work, and he then experienced the early death of his father from lung cancer. This brought about his decision to commit to Navigators work, supporting himself first as a telephone sanitiser salesman and then by working for an estate agency. However, fame is difficult to shake off, and Fox recalls one manager who was “incredulous” to have encountered him in business setting rather than on the screen.
Fox returned to his profession (aside from a religious film) a decade later, not long before this book came out. He retained some scruples about his choice of roles, and he declined The French Lieutenant’s Woman on advice that he would give offence to Christians. However, he accepted the role of a gay character in a television play by Trevor Griffiths called Country, because he considered it a serious work. As a Christian actor, perhaps he also wanted to signal to friends like Bogarde (who provided the foreword to this book) that he was no anti-gay bigot (there’s also a non-judgemental account of some schoolboy homosexual experiences).
While at drama school Fox began a relationship with Sarah Miles, and he later had a girlfriend named only as “Amanda”. Through his Christian work he met Mary Piper, a former theatre nurse at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. They married, and a photo in the book shows them with their four children – one of whom these days is notorious as a far-right activist with belligerent Christian nationalist views far removed from his father’s evangelicalism.
Comeback at first glance looks like a typical Hodder & Stoughton Christian memoir, and in the US the work was handled by the evangelical publisher Eerdmans. However, only the last few chapters are concerned with Fox’s religious conversion and what came after, and despite the book’s title his decision to return to acting is dealt with only at the very end. Readers who are interested primarily in an actor’s reminiscences can enjoy Fox’s account of his early life and career without fear of being “preached at”.
The surname Fox, of course, is synonymous with acting and theatreland. James’ father Robin was a theatrical agent whose roster included family friend Robert Morley; in due course Robin and Morley went into the production business together, partnering with Robin’s secretary Ros Chatto (the since much-reported intimacy between Robin and Chatto is not mentioned, perhaps because Chatto was still alive at the time). Two of Robin’s sons became actors, while the third (who died recently) was a theatrical producer, and the next generation has produced a whole crop of household names.
Fox had a couple of small roles in films as a child, but his parents were less than enthusiastic about his decision to take things further after schooling at Harrow by attending drama school in London – Fox writes that they were “resigned” to their son’s ambition. After a spell of national service in Kenya, Fox took a day job at Fortnum’s and then Marks & Spencer (his parents with friendly with the Sieffs) before Tony Richardson cast him in a small role in The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (this was long before Richardson became James’s brother’s father-in-law). After some TV work (initially as “William Fox” – “James” is his middle name), Fox’s big break came with The Servant, opposite Dirk Bogarde. His career to took him to Hollywood, where he befriended Roget Vadim and Jane Fonda, and then Rome.
Fox’s conversion to Christianity came at the end of the 1960s, while he was staying in a hotel in Blackpool over Christmas during a theatrical production of Doctor in the House. In the breakfast room, he met a man named Bernie Marks, who engaged with him in discussions about the Bible. Marks found a receptive listener, but only in part because of Performance: while in Rome, Fox had already written in his diary about “the wasteful, evil life into which I have let myself fall”. The role of Performance was “to turn me from drugs as a means of self-discovery and spiritual discovery and from the free and uninhibited use of sex as a means of seeking permanent happiness”. He had already bought a New Testament six months before meeting Marks.
Marks was involved with an American organisation called the Navigators, and Fox went on to meet with American missionaries from the group in Manchester. At one point, he writes, he found himself “drawn into some teaching to do with certain experiences and gifts of the Holy Spirit”, but the comment is enigmatic and he also writes of building relationships with mainstream Anglican evangelicals at St Helen’s Church in Bishopsgate, where Rev Dick Lucas was the vicar. Fox is self-critical about some of his actions shortly after converting: he accuses himself of writing an “insensitive” letter breaking off contact with a friend, and of an uncaring self-righteousness.
Fox initially continued with theatre acting, but in Glasgow he was fired from a production after prioritising a Navigators conference over his work, and he then experienced the early death of his father from lung cancer. This brought about his decision to commit to Navigators work, supporting himself first as a telephone sanitiser salesman and then by working for an estate agency. However, fame is difficult to shake off, and Fox recalls one manager who was “incredulous” to have encountered him in business setting rather than on the screen.
Fox returned to his profession (aside from a religious film) a decade later, not long before this book came out. He retained some scruples about his choice of roles, and he declined The French Lieutenant’s Woman on advice that he would give offence to Christians. However, he accepted the role of a gay character in a television play by Trevor Griffiths called Country, because he considered it a serious work. As a Christian actor, perhaps he also wanted to signal to friends like Bogarde (who provided the foreword to this book) that he was no anti-gay bigot (there’s also a non-judgemental account of some schoolboy homosexual experiences).
While at drama school Fox began a relationship with Sarah Miles, and he later had a girlfriend named only as “Amanda”. Through his Christian work he met Mary Piper, a former theatre nurse at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. They married, and a photo in the book shows them with their four children – one of whom these days is notorious as a far-right activist with belligerent Christian nationalist views far removed from his father’s evangelicalism.
Displaying 1 of 1 review