Actor Alan Bates Dies At 69
Alan Bates, who first gained fame on the London stage and went on to star in a string of successful 1960s movies including "Zorba the Greek," has died, his agent said Sunday. He was 69.
Bates died of cancer in a London hospital Saturday night, said his agent Rosalind Chatto.
Regarded as one of the most versatile actors of his generation, Bates forged his reputation on the British stage, notably playing the resentful working class young man Jimmy Porter in a late 1950's production of John Osborne's "Look Back In Anger."
His first important film role was opposite Laurence Olivier in the 1960's "The Entertainer." In 1964, he played Basil in "Zorba the Greek" and two years later acted in "Georgy Girl" with Lynn Redgrave.
"I just thought that, apart from being a really first-rate actor, he was the most delightful person," said Glenda Jackson, his co-star in the celebrated 1969 movie "Women in Love."
"As he grew older he became an even better actor with much greater depth and breadth," she told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Alan Arthur Bates was born in Derbyshire, central England. From an early age his passion was acting, and he won a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Bates' studies were interrupted by his two years' National Service in the Royal Air Force, but he made his professional theater debut in 1955 with the Midland Theater Company in central England.
His acclaimed 1956 performance in "Look Back In Anger" in London's West End was the start of a lifelong stage career that saw him perform in the works of modern playwrights such as Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard, as well as those of Chekhov and Shakespeare.
But he was also an established screen actor and was nominated for a best actor Oscar award for his work in 1968's "The Fixer," in which he starred alongside Dirk Bogarde. The following year he played Rupert Birkin in "Women In Love," based on the D.H. Lawrence novel, starring alongside Jackson and Oliver Reed.
Bates won a best actor Tony Award in 2002 for his portrayal on Broadway of an impoverished nobleman in "Fortune's Fool," Ivan Turgenev's dissection of mid-19th century Russian country life.
More recently, Bates played the butler Mr. Jennings in Robert Altman's 2001 aristocratic murder mystery "Gosford Park" and also had a role in 2002's "The Sum of All Fears," which starred Ben Affleck.
Bates was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1995 and knighted at the end of 2002.
His son, Tristan, 19, died of an asthma attack in 1990, and his wife, actress Victoria Ford, died in 1992. He is survived by two brothers; his son, Benedick, and a granddaughter, Chatto said. Funeral arrangements were not yet final, the agent added.