Alan Bates

[julian_craster]

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Sir Alan Arthur Bates (1934-2003), actor, was born at Queen Mary Nursing Home, Derby, on 17 February 1934, the eldest of the three sons of Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance superintendent, and his wife, Florence Mary, nee Wheatcroft. At the time of his birth his parents lived at Farley, Derwent Avenue, Allestree, near Belper in Derbyshire. Both parents played musical instruments, his father the cello and his mother the piano, and a home environment where the arts flourished led Bates to an interest in theatre. While attending Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Belper, he acted in school plays and enjoyed watching productions at the Derby Little Theatre Club, whose leading repertory actors included John Osborne and John Dexter. He also enjoyed films at the local cinema, admiring actors such as James Mason, Marcello Mastroianni, and Spencer Tracy. After winning a scholarship to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where his contemporaries included Albert Finney, Peter O'Toole, and Richard Harris, and doing national service in the RAF, Bates joined the Midland Theatre Company, in Coventry, making his professional stage debut in You and Your Wife (1955).



After moving to London in 1956, Bates became a founder member of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, which was set up by actor-director George Devine and director Tony Richardson to perform plays neglected by West End managements and as a forum for new writers. His first roles were as Simon Fellowes in Angus Wilson's The Mulberry Bush (1956) and Hopkins in Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1956), but he and the theatre's first major impact came with their third production, John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956), starring Kenneth Haigh as the rebellious anti-hero Jimmy Porter, with Bates as his quiet, sympathetic friend, Cliff Lewis, and Tony Richardson directing. The play was seen to represent a new generation's disillusionment with post-war Britain. Osborne and others of the new school were dubbed 'angry young men', and the 'kitchen sink' drama was born. It was also a launching pad for Bates, who reprised his role in Moscow as part of the World Youth Festival (1957), at the Edinburgh Festival (1958), and for his Broadway debut (Lyceum Theatre, 1957-8, and John Golden Theatre, 1958). He then had success on the West End stage as Edmund Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (Globe Theatre, 1958), and the extrovert, sadistic brother Mick in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker (Duchess Theatre, 1960, then on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre, 1961-2). He returned to Broadway to play the title role in Jean Kerr's Greenwich Village comedy, Poor Richard (Helen Hayes Theatre, 1964-5).



Although he had made his film debut with a small role in the comedy It's Never Too Late (1956), starring Phyllis Calvert, Bates did not go back to the big screen until after this run of stage successes. He appeared as song-and-dance man's son Frank Rice, alongside Laurence Olivier, in the film version (1960) of John Osborne's stage play The Entertainer before starring as a fugitive murderer discovered in a barn and mistaken for Jesus Christ by three children in Whistle Down the Wind (1961), a north-country draughtsman forced into marriage when his girlfriend becomes pregnant in A Kind of Loving (his first picture with the director John Schlesinger, 1962), a quiet adulterer in The Running Man (1963), Mick in the screen adaptation of The Caretaker (1963, retitled The Guest in the USA), a social-climbing clerk in Nothing but the Best (1964), a young English writer in Zorba the Greek (1964), a man swapping his pregnant girlfriend for her flatmate in the 'swinging sixties' comedy Georgy Girl (1966), and the faithful farm labourer Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd (with Schlesinger again, 1967).



Bates made his Hollywood debut as Yakov Bok, the Jewish handyman unjustly imprisoned in tsarist Russia, in The Fixer (1968), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, but he never desired the trappings of stardom and continued to pick his roles carefully. He returned to Britain for Women in Love (1969), director Ken Russell's adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel, notable for a nude wrestling scene with his fellow star Oliver Reed, and The Go-Between (1971), reuniting him with his Far from the Madding Crowd co-star Julie Christie as the tenant farmer and the fiancee of a wounded South African War veteran conducting an affair in director Joseph Losey's film based on the Edwardian novel by L. P. Hartley, adapted by Harold Pinter.



On 9 May 1970 Bates married the thirty-year-old Valerie June Ward, an actress and model under the name Victoria Ward, daughter of Robert Alfred William Wood, printer. Their twin sons, Benedick and Tristan, were born in 1971. Professionally, the 1970s saw Bates continue to switch between stage and screen. He reprised his role as the angry, embittered brother, Andrew Shaw, from playwright David Storey's In Celebration (Royal Court Theatre, 1969) in director Lindsay Anderson's 1975 film version, and the title role of a troubled university lecturer from Simon Gray's comedy Butley (Criterion Theatre, 1971, and Morosco Theatre, New York, 1972-3) in a film directed by Harold Pinter in 1974, before taking it on a tour of American cities the following year. The beginning of his long theatrical association with Gray, usually directed by Pinter, brought him best actor honours in both the London Evening Standard and the Tony awards. The pair continued with Otherwise Engaged (Queen's Theatre, 1975-6), winning Bates a Variety Club award for his portrayal of debonair publisher Simon, and Stage Struck (Vaudeville Theatre, 1979, directed by Stephen Hollis), a thriller in which he played scheming husband Robert. In between these productions, Bates also made an impression as Allott, the disillusioned art teacher, in David Storey's Life Class (Royal Court Theatre and Duke of York's Theatre, both 1974), and supported the opening of the Derby Playhouse in 1976 by starring there as Boris Trigorin in Chekhov's The Seagull, a role he also played that year in the West End (Duke of York's Theatre). Although he acted Hamlet at the Nottingham Playhouse (1971) and an impudent Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew with the Royal Shakespeare Company (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 1973), he was usually at his most electric in contemporary works.



A productive period in television in the late 1970s and early 1980s saw Bates playing Michael Henchard in Dennis Potter's adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978), John Mortimer in that writer's autobiographical A Voyage Round My Father (1982), and Guy Burgess, the exiled spy in Moscow, in An Englishman Abroad (1983), which teamed director John Schlesinger with writer Alan Bennett and won Bates a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) best actor award. On stage, he continued to enthrall audiences, as the blackmailed homosexual Austro-Hungarian army colonel Alfred Redl in a revival of John Osborne's A Patriot for Me (Chichester Festival Theatre and Theatre Royal, Haymarket, both 1983, winning him another Variety Club award, then Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, 1984); Nicolas, the interrogator, in Harold Pinter's torture play One for the Road (Lyric Studio, Hammersmith, 1984); Edgar in Strindberg's The Dance of Death (Riverside Studios, 1985); and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (Strand Theatre, 1989).



Still shunning stardom and taking only film roles that appealed to him, often in low-budget, independent pictures, Bates was notable on screen as Saul Kaplan, the romantic artist, in An Unmarried Woman (1977), Serge Diaghilev, mentor and possessive lover of the legendary male ballet dancer, in Nijinsky (1980), H. J. Heidler, the rich Englishman who takes a mistress in 1920s Paris, in Quartet (1981), David Cornwallis, the alcoholic husband of the doomed violinist, in Duet for One (1986), Claudius in director Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990), the quack doctor Eamon McCree in the Sam Shepard-directed western Silent Tongue (1992), and Jennings, the butler, in director Robert Altman's country-house whodunit Gosford Park (2001). His later television work included playing Josiah Bounderby in Hard Times (1994), the title role of the crossword- and anagram-obsessed former university lecturer in Oliver's Travels (1995), based on Alan Plater's novel, the eccentric Uncle Matthew in Love in a Cold Climate (2001), and George V in Bertie and Elizabeth (2002).

But Bates's first love remained the theatre. He teamed up with writer David Storey and director Lindsay Anderson again in Stages (National Theatre, 1992), returned to the West End in the title role of Ibsen's The Master Builder (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 1995), played the travel writer holding imaginary conversations with his comatose wife in Simon Gray's Life Support (Aldwych Theatre, 1997), and starred as Mark Antony, opposite Frances de la Tour's Cleopatra, in a Royal Shakespeare Company production (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 1999, Barbican Theatre, 2000). He also returned to New York, performing alongside Eileen Atkins in Yasmina Reza's acclaimed The Unexpected Man (Promenade Theatre, 2000-01), and winning a Tony award for his portrayal on Broadway of the penniless aristocrat Kuzovkin in Ivan Turgenev's Fortune's Fool (Music Box Theatre, 2002).



As an actor, Bates (who was appointed CBE in 1995 and knighted in 2003) was known for his versatility and sensitivity, able to switch from introversion and vulnerability to menace and manipulation, showing expert timing in both drama and comedy, with irony and understatement as his tools. He was also a private man who never sought the trappings of stardom or the lure of big money, turning down a seven-year Hollywood contract after his original success in Look Back in Anger.



After twenty years of family life, in the early 1990s Bates faced two tragedies: the death of his son Tristan from an asthma attack in 1990 and that of his wife, Valerie, two years later from a suspected heart attack, following a wasting disease. He said his life was 'cut literally in half, with four becoming two, like a sniper in your garden' (Daily Telegraph, 29 Dec 2003). In 1994 he established the Tristan Bates Theatre at the Actors Centre, Covent Garden, in his late son's memory. He died of pancreatic cancer at the London Clinic, 20 Devonshire Place, Westminster, on 27 December 2003. He was survived by his son Benedick, who had followed him into acting.



Anthony Hayward

[jaycad]

brilliant as 'michael henchard' in the mayor of casterbridge'

[TomDaws]

I've just finished reading a biography of Alan Bates, and was surprised to discover how complicated his personal life and marriage were. The book is by Daniel Spoto.

[chauncy19]

Wow, Didn't realise he was dead. Only knew him from films including my favorite King of Hearts.

Did see him "recently" in a TV murder mystery and could hardly believe it was him as he had aged so much or should I say age had changed him so much. Anyway thanks for the history, will try and find the biography.

[wadsy]

I've just finished reading a biography of Alan Bates, and was surprised to discover how complicated his personal life and marriage were. The book is by Daniel Spoto.

"Otherwise Engaged" by Donald Spoto



I have the book & his personal life was indeed complicated. Tragic about his



wife & son.

[TomDaws]

Yes - Donald, not Daniel. Aplologies!

[ram4553]

Alan Bates delivered memorable performances on stage and on film. A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972) is unknown to most people, and I think it may contain his best film acting. Peter Nichols adapted his stage play; Peter Medak (The Ruling Class) directed.



This very black comedy about a married couple coping with heart-breaking, spirit-shattering issues is a field day for actors. I was fortunate to see Albert Finney and Zena Walker when the play was fist produced on Broadway, and then revived, decades between, with Jim Dale and Stockard Channing, and Eddie Izzard and Victoria Hamilton.



But Alan Bates and Janet Suzman on film...incomparable. No one I knew saw the film when it was released in the U.S. ("Sounds depressing," said a number of friends who avoided it.) It is rarely mentioned when Bates' performances are celebrated. Shame. Another of those special movies overlooked and abandoned.

[cornershop15]

It's true that he was particularly good in that film, a very difficult role. But it IS depressing and I'm afraid the black humour made it very uncomfortable viewing. A bit similar to the TV play Brimstone And Treacle (haven't seen the movie version). This must have been Peter Bowles' biggest role in a film, I think, more substantial than others, probably the same with the late Sheila Gish too. There are some interesting posters and photos, as always, at Movie Goods:



A Day in the Death of Joe Egg posters from MovieGoods.com



My favourite performances of Alan's are A Kind Of Loving and Far From The Madding Crowd. I don't have the latter as there's been criticism of the DVD quality, but have this capture from my A Kind Of Loving collection to remind us of what a nice-looking young man he was!







Two of his films that I still haven't seen are Nothing But The Best and [B]Zorba The Greek. When was the last time they were shown or appeared on DVD?



Alan Bates must be one of very few actors to have a distinguished career in theatre, films and television. In the latter, he was acclaimed for The Mayor Of Castorbridge (Thomas Hardy again) and An Englishman Abroad, where his co-star was the inimitable Coral Browne. I also liked a Harold Pinter play Alan was in called The Collection, especially when he asked Malcolm McDowell if he had any olives and then refused them!

[ram4553]

My favourite performances of Alan's are A Kind Of Loving and Far From The Madding Crowd. I don't have the latter as there's been criticism of the DVD quality, but have this capture from my A Kind Of Loving collection to remind us of what a nice-looking young man he was!



Two of his films that I still haven't seen are Nothing But The Best and [B]Zorba The Greek. When was the last time they were shown or appeared on DVD?

That is a very pleasing photo. A Kind of Loving and Far From the Madding Crowd rank very high on my list of Bates' performances too. Zorba is programmed frequently over here on TCM. Watched it a month or so ago.



I'm now in the mood for a Bates retrospective. Will have to assemble a few of his films, brew some coffee, and settle in for some choice viewing soon. This is becoming the norm: One thing at the Forum leads to another. Just learned of The Running Man. Must track that one down. Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, and Bates. Sounds like a pleasant diversion.

[batman]

Just learned of The Running Man. Must track that one down. Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, and Bates. Sounds like a pleasant diversion.

I watched it the other week. It's a pretty good film. Copies can be obtained via i-offer.

[blacknorth]

Superb actor, though he sometimes hammed it up, it was usually with great effect.



Don't forget his film recreations of two of very famous stage performances - Ben Butley in Harold Pinter's film version of Simon Gray's caustic Butley, and Andrew in Lindsay's Anderson's adaptation of David Storey's famous play, In Celebration. The latter was the subject of a fondly remembered Monty Phython skit, where the son returns home from the pits to hear his father complaining about how hard it is to be a successful writer and attend gala luncheons all day, especially with writer's cramp.



Still waiting for the BBC to repeat those episodes of Play For Today he made with Simon Gray - Two Sundays, and Plaintiffs And Defendants. Before I die too, please Beeb.



My favourite Bates' performance is probably Unnatural Pursuits, another Gray collaboration, very funny, and filmed at the time of Bates' personal tragedies. He looks haggard but overcomes it with great humour.



I felt the Spoto biography was not satisfactory and took a very parochial view of the man's career, passing over stunning films like The Shout as simply being unsuccessful and therefore not worth discussing. There was no attempt to study any of his characterisations, just a list of stuff over a few hundred pages. He deserves better than that.



I think his body of work is stunning over 40 years.

[ram4553]

Thanks b-man. I get these cinematic yens to find and pair lesser-known titles (at least they are to me) from time to time. Perhaps The Running Man and Deadfall (Caine, Portman). May toss in Perfect Friday, which I haven't watched in ages. A series devoted caper trios could make for entertaining viewing. Menage a trouble.

[batman]

Thanks b-man. I get these cinematic yens to find and pair lesser-known titles (at least they are to me) from time to time. Perhaps The Running Man and Deadfall (Caine, Portman). May toss in Perfect Friday, which I haven't watched in ages. A series devoted caper trios could make for entertaining viewing. Menage a trouble.

I wouldn't object to an evening of watching those three ... I haven't watched PF for ages either. I'll have to pencil that in for a night sometime soon.

[cornershop15]

In response to Blacknorth ...



Both Butley (BBC2 mid-90s?) and In Celebration have been shown only once on TV as far as I know, the latter early on in Channel 4's history. Zorba The Greek is probably ignored because it is a long B&W film. With adverts it could run to nearly 3 hours and maybe TV companies feel it won't be as appealing at Christmas or Easter as a colour musical like The Sound Of Music or epics like Ben Hur (or indeed the much-shown Great Escape). Do others agree? I really want to see Zorba but I think colour TV has deprived me.

[ram4553]

Superb actor, though he sometimes hammed it up, it was usually with great effect.



Don't forget his film recreations of two of very famous stage performances - Ben Butley in Harold Pinter's film version of Simon Gray's caustic Butley, and Andrew in Lindsay's Anderson's adaptation of David Storey's famous play, In Celebration.

Agreed. I tend to cherish his less energetic, less showy performances, though I'll watch anything he has done/attempted. Saw Butley on stage and in the movies. Most recently took another look at it and In Celebration at home. (Thank you Netflix!) His last stage performance (at least in the States) a Turgenev adaptation co-starring Frank Langella, was a feast. Wish it had been recorded. Mmm, saying that not knowing for sure that it wasn't.



I didn't get through the Spoto bio. Too spotty and generic dealing with his career for my taste.

[moonfleet]

Wow, Didn't realise he was dead. Only knew him from films including my favorite King of Hearts.

Did see him "recently" in a TV murder mystery and could hardly believe it was him as he had aged so much or should I say age had changed him so much. Anyway thanks for the history, will try and find the biography.

If King of Hearts is Le Roi de Coeur by Philippe de Broca, with also Adolfo Celli, Pierre Brasseur, Jean-Claude Brialy, Michel Serrault, Geneviève Bujold (I'm not quiet sure of her....), then it's one off my favorite comedy too



MooN.

[blacknorth]

In response to Blacknorth ...



Both Butley (BBC2 mid-90s?) and In Celebration have been shown only once on TV as far as I know, the latter early on in Channel 4's history. Zorba The Greek is probably ignored because it is a long B&W film. With adverts it could run to nearly 3 hours and maybe TV companies feel it won't be as appealing at Christmas or Easter as a colour musical like The Sound Of Music or epics like Ben Hur (or indeed the much-shown Great Escape). Do others agree? I really want to see Zorba but I think colour TV has deprived me.

Yes, I remember the Butley screening on BBC2, it was very welcome, thought I'd never see it. Didn't see In Celebration until I go the internet and was able to track down a Collector's NTSC copy from the US.



Thankfully, they've both been released on DVD now and I picked them up.



Was never very keen on Zorba - I recorded it from Channel4 in the early 90's when they still had the nerve/bravery to show B&W films at 10PM on weekday nights. I felt it was a bit too much Quinn and very melodramatic.



If you get a chance see Separate Tables in which he has dual roles opposite Julie Christie. And The Return of the Soldier is a fine film too. In fact, lots of good stuff - we need a Bates retrospective at the BFI.

[blacknorth]

Agreed. I tend to cherish his less energetic, less showy performances, though I'll watch anything he has done/attempted. Saw Butley on stage and in the movies. Most recently took another look at it and In Celebration at home. (Thank you Netflix!) His last stage performance (at least in the States) a Turgenev adaptation co-starring Frank Langella, was a feast. Wish it had been recorded. Mmm, saying that not knowing for sure that it wasn't.



I didn't get through the Spoto bio. Too spotty and generic dealing with his career for my taste.

I envy you seeing Butley onstage. I saw his performance as The Master Builder, stunned me to say the least.



It's possible the Turgenev was recorded from the stalls. He won a Tony for that, didn't he?



Glad you agree about Spoto, thought I was in a mad minority, as I hadn't heard any other complaints.

[moonfleet]

I saw in a shop The Gardian with A.Bates, D.Pleasence, R.shaw.......is it a good film ??



MooN.

[blacknorth]

I saw in a shop The Gardian with A.Bates, D.Pleasence, R.shaw.......is it a good film ??



MooN.

The Guardian? Possibly you mean The Guest? which was the American title for The Caretaker, a screen adapatation of Harold Pinter's play. It's a very difficult film, but if you like Pinter it's a fine watch.



I wouldn't recommend it as an entry point for Pinter though. Bates is very good and holds his own against an on-form Robert Shaw and an outstanding Donald Pleasance. It's worth seeing for the performances alone as, in many ways, the early Pinter casts had to pioneer a new way of acting because of the nature of the material they were given.