Brian Cox was the only son and youngest of five children born in Dundee. He is from a working-class Irish and Scottish Catholic family.
Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, his father, was a butcher and eventually a shopkeeper who died when Cox was eight years old.
Cox was raised by his four older sisters. At the age of 14, he joined the Dundee Repertory Theatre.
Charles McArdle Campbell Cox cause of death: What happened to Brian Cox’s father?
Cox attended St Mary’s Forebank Primary School, then St Michael’s Junior Secondary School (both in Dundee), where he graduated at the age of 15.
After a few years at Dundee Repertory Theatre, he attended theatre school at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from the ages of 17 to 19.
Cox left the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in 1965 to join the Lyceum company in Edinburgh, followed by two years with the Birmingham Rep in 1966, where he played the title role in Peer Gynt (1967) and Orlando in As You Like It, in which he made his London debut in June 1967 at the Vaudeville Theatre.
