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. In 1964, he directed the play in Sydney. 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.