by Hal Erickson
biography
Making his way to England by working as a ship's deck hand, Australian actor Vincent Ball attained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art almost immediately upon arrival. One of his first jobs was as a stunt double on the 1949 Technicolor romance The Blue Lagoon, but within a few years he was featured on his own in such films as Stop Press Girl (1950), The Drayton Case (1954) and A Town Like Alice (1956). With his street-tough handsomeness and pugnacious personality, Ball became a fixture of medium-budget action films in the early 1960s. Vincent Ball returned to Australia in the early 1970s, where he thrived as a character player in such Down-Under films as Breaker Morant (1980), The Southern Cross (1982) and Phar Lap (1983).
