Alan Bates

At 69 years old, Alan Bates has this physical status:

Career

In 1955, Bates' first appearance on stage in You and Your Wife, a Coventry suburb.

Cliff in Anger, his first appearance in the West End, made him a celebrity in the royal Court and made him a celebrity. He appeared on television (for the ITV Play of the Week) and on Broadway. He appeared in Richard III as a member of the 1967 acting group at the Stratford Festival in Canada, as well as as the title actor.

Bates appeared in many television shows in the United Kingdom, such as ITV Play of the Week, Armchair Theatre, and the ITV Television Playhouse, among others.

In 1960, Giorgio appeared in the final episode of The Four Just Men (TV series) titled Treviso Dam.

In The Entertainer (1960), Bates made his debut film role opposite Laurence Olivier, his first film role. When performing at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City in the early 1960s, Bates appeared for the Padded Wagon Moving Company in the early 1960s.

In his second film, Whistle Down the Wind (1961), directed by Bryan Forbes, Bates played the lead. In A Kind of Loving (1962), directed by John Schlesinger, he followed it. Both films established Bates as a film star.

Film critics cited The Running Man, 1963 film noir, as one of Alan Bates' finest performances. Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, and Bates appeared in the supporting role of Stephen Maddox, an insurance company prosecutor who appears in Harvey and Remick in Spain after Harvey successfully faked his death in an aeroplane crash to profit from a life insurance policy, leaving wife Lee Remick a small fortune. The Running Man was one of the many interesting twists and turns offered to film noir enthusiasts. In addition, the film provided a depth of character analysis that was not worthy of a memorable film noir. Bates' character developed well with Harvey and Remick, aiding director Carol Reed in a never-ending, suspenseful tale of cat and mouse detective work that progressed seamlessly from beginning to end. Although many films in film noir have predictable plots, The Running Man featured a plot that was not predictable, which was its best asset. Lee Remick was seen sardantly on a dock, marveling at a decaying ship with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background.

With Donald Pleasence and Robert Shaw, Bates went into a remake of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker (1963). Clive Donner, who later produced Nothing But the Best (1964) with Bates, was the show's producer.

In Zorba the Greek (1964) and James Mason in Georgy Girl (1966), Anthony Quinn helped him support Anthony Quinn. Bates appeared in King of Hearts (1966), and appeared on Wednesday Theatre.

In Far From the Madding Crowd (1967), Bates was reunited with Schlesinger, who starred Julie Christie and then did the Bernard Malamud film The Fixer (1968), which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

He appeared in Women in Love directed by Ken Russell in 1969, where Bates and Reed wrestled naked. He stayed close to it when Col. Vershinin appeared in Three Sisters, directed by and co-starring Laurence Olivier.

Bates was handpicked by director John Schlesinger (with whom he had previously worked on A Kind of Loving and Far From The Madding Crowd) to appear in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971). Bates was filmed filming The Go-Between (1971) with director Joseph Losey and Christie, but the actor had already become a father by that time, and so he had to drop out of the role. (Italian Bannen, who balked at kissing and simulating sex with another man, was first to be credited with an Academy Award nomination for the role.)

Bates appeared in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972) and produced and appeared in a short, Second Best (1972).

Butley (1974) and In Celebration (1975). He appeared in Story of a Love Story (1973) and several stage adaptations, butley (1974) and In Celebration (1975). In Plays for Today and the Laurence Olivier Presents version of Harold Pinter's The Collection (1976), he was the villain in Royal Flash (1975).

Bates appeared in the television series Piccadilly Circus (1977) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978). He played Michael Henchard, the ultimately disgraced lead, in what he described as his favorite part.

He appeared in films including An Unmarried Woman (1978) and Nijinsky (1980), as well as Bette Midler's ruthless business manager in the film The Rose (1979). In 1979, he appeared in The Shout (1979) and a Very Like a Whale (1980).

Guy Burgess, a participant of the Cambridge spy exiled in Moscow, and Pack of Lies (1987), as a British Secret Service agent tracking numerous Soviet spies, played two diametrically opposed characters. He continued to work in film and television in the 1990s, including the role of Claudius in Mel Gibson's adaptation of Hamlet (1990), though most of his roles in this period were less dramatic.

In 2001, Bates appeared in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed period drama Gosford Park, in which he played the butler Jennings. Antonius Agrippa appeared in the 2004 TV film Spartacus, but he died before it premiered. The film was dedicated to writer Howard Fast, who wrote the original book that inspired Stanley Kubrick's film Spartacus.

Simon Gray, who appeared in Butley, Otherwise Engaged, Stage Struck, Melon, Life Support, and Simply Disconnected, as well as the television series Unnatural Pursuits of Butley and Gray, had a particular connection on stage. Ian Charleson, who became a mentor, and Bates later contributed a chapter to a 1990 book on his colleague after Charleson's early death in Otherwise Engaged.

In 1996, Bates was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and he was knighted in 2003. He was an Associate Member of RADA and a patron of The Actors Centre in Covent Garden, London, from 1994 to his death in 2003.

Source

Awards

• 1959 Clarence Derwent Award for A Long Day's Journey into Night
• 1971 Evening Standard Best Actor Award for Butley
• 1972 Best Actor Tony for Butley (a performance he recreated in the film version of the same name, Butley in 1974)
• 1975 Variety Club Award for Otherwise Engaged
• 1983 Variety Club Award for A Patriot for Me
• 2000 Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award for Unexpected Man
• 2002 Best Actor Tony and Drama Desk, for Fortune's Fool