Cliff Simon  Biography

Cliff Simon is a South African athlete and actor, best known for his portrayal of Ba’al in Stargate SG-1.  Simon received recognition as a model in South Africa and was asked to enter the Mr. South Africa talent and action man competition. On winning this competition in 1992, Simon was offered an audition on a successful television series, Egoli: Place of Gold.

Cliff Simon Age

Cliff Simon is a South African athlete and actor, best known for his portrayal of Ba’al in Stargate SG-1. He was born on September 7, 1962, in, Johannesburg, South Africa to Emmanuelle and Phylis Simon. Simon is 57 years old as of 2019.

Cliff Simon Early Life

Simon was conceived in Johannesburg, South Africa, the fourth offspring of Emmanuelle and Phylis Simon. Both of his folks are of Jewish ancestry from Poland and Lithuania. From an exceptionally youthful age, Cliff sought to be the main South African swimmer to win an Olympic gold decoration.

His mom, a swimming educator, showed him from an extremely youthful age, and at age 6 he started to demonstrate ability as an athlete.

By age 15, Cliff had arrived at a national level in South Africa in both swimming and aerobatic, yet he chose to stop preparing in tumbling to all the more likely spotlight on swimming.

In 1975, his folks chose to emigrate to the United Kingdom, because of the then-current disturbance in Africa. It was there that Simon finished his tutoring and was picked to swim in the British International squad.

He contended in Olympic preliminaries and qualified for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The University of Houston and Southern Methodist University in Texas offered him grants, where he prepared with the United States swimming group, the Mustangs.

This would have finished in him contending in the 1984 Olympic Games. Nonetheless, following three years of extreme preparing, he chose to stop and come back to South Africa, because of his worries that he was passing up his public activity.

Back in South Africa, Simon entered the air force where he proceeded with his swimming and accomplished the most elevated athletic honor given noticeable all-around power, the Victor Ludorum.

Cliff Simon Personal Life

He grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1977, when he was 15, my parents emigrated to London. They were a family of six and my parents wanted to get away from South Africa’s Apartheid regime.

At that time, Simon was a swimmer with a dream to swim in the Olympics. South Africa had been banned from all Olympic sports because of apartheid, so he got onto the British International team.

Cliff trained for over six hours a day with an ex-Olympic coach. I swam before school, during lunch, and after school. It was too late to swim in the 1980 Olympics but my goal and dream were the 1984 Olympics. My times they good enough by the time I was 17, with 3 years of British training behind me, to potentially swim in the 1984 games.

Simon was offered two full scholarships, to Southern Methodist University in Texas, and the University of Houston. However, he realized at 17 that he was burned out. Cliff decided he didn’t want to swim anymore.

He needed to experience life, have new challenges, seeks new adventures and cut the apron strings. All his life was only swimming. The fun had gone out of it. He decided, of course against my parents’ wishes, to return to South Africa. I entered the South African military instead.

He spent two years in the Air Force. In hindsight, he realizes that it was a great life-changing experience, but at the time it was terrible. He became a man very quickly and learned that if I put my mind to something, he knows he can do it.

When he finished the military, he didn’t know what I wanted to do. He was also a gymnast. An opportunity arose for me to be on stage in a show.

Simon felt at home onstage. Cliff knew he needed some kind of foundation, so he took classes in ballet, modern jazz and acrobatics. He worked in South Africa for seven years in cabarets, and other shows, and was offered a job at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. Cliff sold everything I had and ended up with just enough money to buy a ticket to Paris.

At 26 he was offered the principal spot after only six months in the chorus. He had given me until age 30 to stop dancing, and to move onto my next goal, and to fulfill my acting dream.

Cliff Simon

After an incredible year at the Moulin Rouge, he went back to South Africa and pursued modeling. He entered a competition where the prize was to audition for a Soap Opera. Simon had no acting experience but he knew this is what he wanted to do.

Cliff thought this is my one opportunity to dive into the deep end. He attended five months of drama school until they said he was ready to work. You must learn how to act. It’s a circle, learn the technique of acting so when you act, it looks like you are not acting.

He stayed on Egoli: Place of Gold for seven years. A Soap Opera is the best training for an actor. You work with multiple cameras, eyeliners, shadows and at high speed, 23 scenes a day, every day.

His new dream was to be a USA citizen. After my run with Egoli: Place of Gold, I applied for citizenship. He put a timeline on my dream and turned it into a goal.

Cliff Simon Married

He is married. In 2000, when he was 38, he and his wife moved to the United States. He knew he would never go back to South Africa. Cliff was looking for a better quality of life.

Not necessarily financially, but being able to walk my dog at 10 pm if he wanted to, and not worry about security. It also means living by the ocean. In 2005, the couple became USA citizens. He had reached that goal, one of the best days of his life.

Later, he got an agent and auditioned for many Soap Operas and TV series. I landed my first job on Nash Bridges. At the age of 40, he reached his dream and goal.

Cliff Simon Acting Career

In 1982, after serving his two-year term in the air force, he landed a job teaching windsurfing and waterskiing at a resort hotel. As fate would have it, a stage show was in production at the resort and Simon was informed by one of the performers that the choreographer was looking for a gymnast.

Simon somehow knew that this was going to be the first step towards a career on stage. Simon subsequently performed all over the world in various stage productions as a dancer/acrobat, culminating in his dream role as a performer at the world-famous Moulin Rouge, Paris, in 1989.

On his return to South Africa, Simon pursued his stage career as an actor. Whilst studying drama, Simon secured himself a modeling agent and enjoyed success in ramp, print and television commercials.

Simon received recognition as a model in South Africa and was asked to enter the Mr. South Africa talent and action man competition. On winning this competition in 1992, Simon was offered an audition on a successful television series, Egoli: Place of Gold.

After guest-starring on the show for three months, he accepted a permanent contract for a lead role in the show, which he continued for six years.

In 1997, he married his girlfriend in a game lodge in South Africa. After being personally affected by the high levels of crime in Johannesburg, he decided to immigrate to the USA, hoping for a better quality of life. This also gave him the opportunity to further his acting career.

Arriving in 2000 in Los Angeles, Simon secured an agent and landed a guest star role with Don Johnson on the hit TV series, Nash Bridges. A short time after that, he acquired the guest star role of Ba’al on Stargate SG-1.

Cliff’s combination of charming bad guy charisma and wicked sense of humor made him a viewer favorite antagonist, keeping his character recurring for six seasons. In 2008, Simon was brought back to Play Ba’al in the Stargate movie Stargate: Continuum.

In 2015, Simon appeared in a video as Ba’al for the conservation group, Sea Shepherd. In July 2015, Cliff was confirmed for a supporting role in the sci-fi/thriller “Project Eden”.

Cliff Simon Filmography

• Egoli: Place of Gold – Gregory (Mitch) Mitchel (unknown episodes, 1992–1999)
• Operation Delta Force 5: Random Fire – Austin (2000)
• Nash Bridges – Dirk van der Goes (1 episode, 2000)
• Stargate SG-1 – Ba’al (15 episodes, 2001–2007)
• Stargate: Continuum – Ba’al (2008)
• 24 – Russian Sniper (Season 8 Episode 1, 2009)
• Undercovers – (season 1, episode 4: “Jailbreak”, 2010)
• NCIS: Los Angeles – Hans Christian Kemp (season 2, episode 13: “Archangel”, 2011)
• The Americans – Mossad Agent
• NCIS: New Orleans – Dmitry Babakov (Season 1, Episode 03: “Breaking Brig”, 2014) (Credit as Cliff Marc Simon)
• Castle – Polkovnik (Season 7, Episode 04: “Child’s Play”, 2014) (Credit as Cliff Marc Simon)

Cliff Simon Net Worth

His net worth is still under review.