Alan Bates
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art | |
---|---|
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1956–2003 |
Spouse |
Victoria Ward
(m. 1970; died 1992) |
Children | 2, including Benedick |
Sir Alan Arthur Bates
He is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, as well as his roles in King of Hearts, Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd and The Fixer, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson.
Bates went on to star in The Go-Between, An Unmarried Woman, Nijinsky and in The Rose with Bette Midler, as well as many television dramas, including The Mayor of Casterbridge, Harold Pinter's The Collection, A Voyage Round My Father, An Englishman Abroad (as Guy Burgess) and Pack of Lies. He also appeared on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray, such as Butley and Otherwise Engaged.
Early life
Bates was born at the Queen Mary Nursing Home, Darley Abbey, Derby, England, on 17 February 1934, the eldest of three boys born to Florence Mary (née Wheatcroft), a housewife and a pianist, and Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance broker and a cellist.[1] They lived in Allestree, Derby, at the time of Bates' birth, but briefly moved to Mickleover before returning to Allestree.
Both parents were amateur musicians who encouraged Bates to pursue music. However, by the age of 11, having decided to become an actor, he studied drama instead.[2] He further developed his vocation by attending productions at Derby's Little Theatre.
Bates was educated at the Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Derby Road,
Career
Early stage appearances
Bates's stage debut was in 1955, in You and Your Wife, in Coventry.[3]
In 1956 he made his West End debut as Cliff in
Television
In the late 1950s Bates appeared in several plays for television in Britain in shows such as ITV Play of the Week, Armchair Theatre and ITV Television Playhouse.
In 1960 appeared as Giorgio in the final episode of The Four Just Men (TV series) entitled Treviso Dam.
Bates made his feature film debut in The Entertainer (1960) opposite Laurence Olivier. Bates worked for the Padded Wagon Moving Company in the early 1960s while acting at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City.
Film stardom
Bates played the lead in his second feature, Whistle Down the Wind (1961), directed by Bryan Forbes. He followed it with the lead in A Kind of Loving (1962), directed by John Schlesinger. Both films were very popular, establishing Bates as a film star.
Film critics cited the 1963 film noir, The Running Man, as being one of Alan Bates' finest performances. The film starred Laurence Harvey as a man who fakes his death, with Bates in the supporting role of Stephen Maddox, an insurance company investigator.
Bates went into an adaptation of
He supported Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek (1964) and James Mason in Georgy Girl (1966). Bates returned to TV doing episodes of Wednesday Theatre and starred in Philippe de Broca's King of Hearts (1966).
Bates was reunited with Schlesinger in Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), starring Julie Christie then did the Bernard Malamud film The Fixer (1968), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
In 1969 he starred in
Bates was handpicked by director
Bates starred in the film of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972) and produced and appeared in a short, Second Best (1972).
He starred in
Television (1970s and 80s)
Bates starred in the TV movie Piccadilly Circus (1977) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978). In the latter he played Michael Henchard, the ultimately-disgraced lead, which he described as his favourite role.
He starred in such international films as
He played two diametrically opposed roles in An Englishman Abroad (1983), as Guy Burgess, a member of the Cambridge spy ring exiled in Moscow, and in Pack of Lies (1987), as a British Secret Service agent tracking several Soviet spies.
Later career
Bates continued working in film and television in the 1990s, including the role of Claudius in Franco Zeffirelli's version of Hamlet (1990). In 2001 he joined an all-star cast in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed period drama Gosford Park, in which he played the butler Jennings. He later played Antonius Agrippa in the 2004 TV film Spartacus, but died before it premiered. The film was dedicated to his memory and that of writer Howard Fast, who wrote the original novel that inspired the film Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick.
On stage, Bates had a particular association with the plays of Simon Gray, appearing in Butley, Otherwise Engaged, Stage Struck, Melon, Life Support, and Simply Disconnected, as well as the film of Butley and Gray's TV series Unnatural Pursuits. In Otherwise Engaged, his co-star was Ian Charleson, who became a friend, and Bates later contributed a chapter to a 1990 book on his colleague after Charleson's early death.[7]
Bates was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1996, and was knighted in 2003.[8] He was an Associate Member of RADA,[citation needed] and was a patron of The Actors Centre, Covent Garden, London, from 1994 until his death in 2003.[9][10]
Personal life
Bates was married to actress Victoria Ward from 1970 until her death from a heart attack in 1992, although they had separated many years earlier.[11] They had twin sons, born in November 1970, the actors Benedick Bates and Tristan Bates. Tristan died following an asthma attack in Tokyo in 1990.[12]
Bates had numerous gay relationships, including those with actor
In the later years of his life, Bates had a relationship with the Welsh actress Angharad Rees.[16]
Death
Bates died of pancreatic cancer[17] in December 2003 after going into a coma. He is buried at All Saints' Church, Bradbourne in Derbyshire.[18]
Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates
Donald Spoto's 2007 book, Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates,[19] is a posthumous authorised biography of Alan Bates. It was written with the cooperation of his son Benedick and features more than one hundred interviews, including with Michael Linnit and Rosalind Chatto.
Tristan Bates Theatre
Bates and his family created the Tristan Bates Theatre at the Actors' Centre in Covent Garden, in memory of his son Tristan who died at the age of 19.[20] Tristan's twin brother, Benedick, is a vice-director.[21]
Selected credits
FILM:
- The Entertainer (1960)
- Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
- A Kind of Loving (1962)
- The Caretaker (1963)
- The Running Man (1963)
- Nothing but the Best (1964)
- Zorba the Greek (1964)
- Georgy Girl (1966)
- King of Hearts (1966)
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
- The Fixer (1968)
- Women in Love (1969)
- Three Sisters (1970)
- The Go-Between (1971)
- A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972)
- Butley (1974)
- In Celebration (1975)
- The Shout (1978)
- An Unmarried Woman (1978)
- The Rose (1979)
- The Return of the Soldier (1982)
- We Think the World of You (1988)
- Hamlet (1990)
- Gosford Park (2001)
STAGE:
- Look Back in Anger (1956)
- Long Day's Journey into Night (1958)
- The Caretaker (1960)
- Butley (1971; 1973)
- Otherwise Engaged (1975)
- A Patriot for Me (1983)
- One for the Road (1984)
- Fortune's Fool (1996; 2002)
TELEVISION:
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978)
- A Voyage Round My Father (1982)
- An Englishman Abroad (1983)
- The Dog It Was That Died (1989)
- 102 Boulevard Haussmann (1991)‡
- Oliver's Travels (1995)
- Nicholas's Gift (1998)
- Love in a Cold Climate (2001)
‡This
Accolades
References
- ^ "Alan Bates Biography". filmreference.com. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 15 September 2007.
- ^ Karen Rappaport. "Alan Bates Biography". The Alan Bates Archive. Archived from the original on 20 April 2008. Retrieved 11 April 2008.
- ^ "Alan Bates Archive Feature: Timeline I, 1954-69". Archived from the original on 19 May 2011.
- ^ "Alan Bates acting credits". Stratford Festival Archives. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
- ^ Whitaker, Herbert (8 April 1967), "The credo of Alan Bates: aim for variety", The Globe and Mail, p. 26
- ^ "Three Sisters (1970)". IMDb. 2 March 1973.
- ^ Ian McKellen, Alan Bates, Hugh Hudson, et al. For Ian Charleson: A Tribute. London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. 1–5.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
- ^ "Learn More". actor at the centre. Retrieved 23 March 2023.
- ^ "In the Name of the Son: Alan Bates Bails Out UK's Actors Centre". Playbill. 3 September 2001.
- ^ "BBC - Derby - Around Derby - Famous Derby - Sir Alan Bates biography".
- ^ Lewis, Roger (28 June 2007). "The Minute They Got Close, He Ran". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
- ^ a b c Belonsky, Andrew (21 May 2007). "New Bio Outs Late, Great, "Gay" Alan Bates / Queerty". Queerty. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ Albany Trust Homosexual Law Reform Society (1984). "GB 0097 HCA/Albany Trust". AIM25. British Library of Political and Economic Science. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007. Retrieved 10 April 2008.
- ^ "Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes leads tributes to Angharad Rees". The Daily Telegraph. London. 28 September 2012.
- ^ "'The minute they got close, he ran'". 28 June 2007.
- ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 2864). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- ISBN 978-0-09-179735-5.
- ^ Michael Billington (29 December 2003). "Sir Alan Bates". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 14 November 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
- ^ "About Tristan Bates Theatre". Tristan Bates Theatre. Archived from the original on 8 January 2007. Retrieved 8 November 2007.
External links
- Alan Bates at IMDb
- Alan Bates at the Internet Broadway Database
- Alan Bates at AllMovie
- Alan Bates at the BFI's Screenonline