Actor Sir Alan Bates has died at the age of 69.

Sir Alan, famous for starring opposite Oliver Reed in the film version of Women in Love, passed away in a London clinic Saturday night.

He had been suffering from cancer of the liver. His brother and son were at his side.

Sir Alan had a long career in the theatre, cinema and television. The brooding good looks that brought him early success in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger matured into a talent for a wide range of modern and classical roles.

He was born in Derbyshire in 1934 and won a scholarship to Rada from school. He served in the RAF, and got his first acting job with a Midlands repertory company. Six months later he auditioned for the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, and after making his debut in The Mulberry Bush in 1956, got the part of Cliff Lewis in Look Back in Anger, which also took him to Broadway.

From then on he was in constant demand, appearing in the West End, Stratford-on-Avon, and at the Bristol Old Vic.

He launched his film career in The Entertainer in 1960, quickly followed by Whistle Down the Wind and The Caretaker. He went on to appear in many period productions, notably Far From the Madding Crowd, The Go-Between and Ken Russell's Women in Love.

On television he scored a notable success in the title role of the BBC serial, The Mayor of Casterbridge, in 1978.

Obituary: Sir Alan Bates
Actor Sir Alan Bates, who has died aged 69, was one of the most important British actors to emerge during the 1950s and 60s, going on to enjoy a career that spanned almost five decades.
Earlier this year he was made a knight in the New Year Honours list, adding to the CBE he was awarded in 1996, for his services to drama.

Sir Alan made his name on the big screen at the start of the Angry Young Men period in the early 1960s.

The 69-year-old's first major film saw him play opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer in 1960, a film about a second-rate performer who ensures the show must go on, and written by John Osborne.

But Sir Alan shared no similiarities with the central character of the film, having trained on a scholarship at the world famous Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

RAF service followed his training, but two years later, at 22, he joined the new English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

In the same year he appeared on stage in Osborne's Look Back in Anger, a performance which turned him into a star.

He has performed in works by some of the most respected writers of modern times including Harold Pinter, Simon Gray, Alan Bennett and Tom Stoppard.

He has also performed many of the classics including Shakespeare, Chekov and Ibsen.

Merit

Sir Alan, who hailed from Derbyshire, worked tirelessly since making his name as an actor, dividing his time between film, television and stage.

But he tended to steer clear of mainstream movies, concentrating on works with more merit than money.

One of his early commercial successes was in Georgy Girl in 1966, where he starred with James Mason and Lynn Redgrave.

Despite the respect he commands from his peers he was only once nominated for an Academy Award.

He was nominated for a best actor award in 1969 for The Fixer, but lost out on the Oscar to Cliff Robertson in Charly.

Sir Alan also starred in Ken Russell's adaptation of D H Lawrence's Women in Love for which his co-star Glenda Jackson won the first of two Oscars.

Twin sons

Other early screen performances included Pinter's The Caretaker, playing Basil in Zorba the Greek and the screen version of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

Sir Alan married Victoria Ward in 1970.

She gave birth to twin sons, Tristan and Benedick in 1971, who both went into acting.

Tristan died in 1990 of an asthma attack, followed two years later by his mother.

To help him come to terms with his losses, Sir Alan threw himself into charity work as well as his career.
He is the patron of the Actors Centre in London, a venue set up in the 1970s by actors John Alderton, Sheila Hancock and Clive Swift for the training of performers.

Sir Alan also endowed a theatre at the Covent Garden centre in the memory of Tristan.

Although often looked over for Academy Awards, the British Academy of Film and Television nominated Sir Alan on six occasions.

The last Bafta nomination was for the 2001 mini-series Love in a Cold Climate, based on Nancy Mitford's satire of the British aristocracy.

Outstanding cast

Sir Alan had an eye for choosing classy films to appear in, none more so than the 2001 murder mystery Gosford Park directed by Robert Altman.

The film received critical acclaim in both Britain and the US.

It was nominated for seven Oscars, eventually picking up just the one for best-screenplay for actor and writer Julian Fellowes.

As well as a host of nominations and awards from associations around the world, the ensemble cast won an outstanding performance award from the Screen Actors Guild.

A recent departure for the actor was the role as a baddie in the Hollywood blockbuster The Sum of All Fears, which starred Ben Affleck.

The recognition kept rolling in for Sir Alan, who won a Tony Award in 2002 for best leading man for Fortune's Fool, an adaptation of an 1848 work by Russian author Ivan Turgenev.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/3352149.stm

Go rent one of his movies. Then slit your wrists. I wouldn't want you to go out without knowing who Alan Bates was, and why he was so highly regarded.

Don't take my earlier comment personally. Obviously, FR has plenty of people who couldn't give two hoots about the theatre, just like I couldn't give a hoot about many of the things other Freepers are passionate about. I just expected a few more to notice this. Doesn't mean everyone had to. And certainly not you individually.

Your post reminds me of all the high-brows who showed up on the thread that announced Dale Earnhardt's death to proclaim they had no idea who he was and wondered what all the fuss was about. (If you write back that you don't know who Dale Earnhardt was either, then you're probably beyond hope. Not knowing who Alan Bates was is excusable, but not knowing who Dale Earnhardt was either, isn't.)

All I can tell you is that you've missed some wonderful story-telling by missing out on Alan Bates. Not worth slitting your wrists over, but you should regret it. And if you ever do familiarize yourself with his work, you will regret you didn't do it earlier.

By the way, I'm actually a bit of an old hick myself. So there. And if you're on FR, you can't be dumb, a priori.

All the best.

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