Roger Rees

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Roger Rees (born May 1944 – July 15, 2015) was a Welsh actor and producer best known for his stage work.

For his role as the lead in Nicholas Nickleby's Life and Adventures, he received an Olivier Award and a Tony Award.

He also received Obie Awards for his role in The End of the Day and as co-director of Peter and the Starcatcher.

In November 2015, Rees was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame for the second time. In Cheers and Lord John Marbury in The West Wing, he was well-known to American television viewers for his portrayal of Robin Colcord.

Early life

Rees was born in Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire, Wales, the son of Doris Louise Smith (née Smith), a shop clerk, and William John Rees, a police officer. He and his parents migrated to Balham, London, where he grew up. He studied art at the Camberwell College of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art, turning to acting while painting backdrops at the Wimbledon Theatre and being asked to fill a role in a play.

Personal life

Rees was a naturalized American citizen in 1989 and spent more than 25 years in the United States. In the 1980s, he converted to Judaism. In 2011, Rees married playwright Rick Elice, a 33-year-old man from New York, just days after the same-sex marriage in New York was legalized. Rees and Elice have also worked together, including as co-playwrights of the comedic thriller Double Double. Elice co-wrote (with Marshall Brickman) the libretto for The Addams Family musical, which was performed by Rees on March 22, 2011. Elice and Rees' co-direction and Elice's stage adaptation and Rees' co-direction (with Alex Timbers), respectively, of Peter and the Starcatcher, received Tony Award nominations in 2012. Elice wrote Finding Roger: An Improbably Theatrical Love Story in October 2017.

Rees concentrated on his decision to appear opposite Chita Rivera on Broadway in The Visit, the last musical written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, after a diagnosis of brain cancer in October 2014. Rees managed to rehearse, preview, and open in The Visit on April 23, 2015, after two brain surgeries, two courses of radiation, and continuing chemotherapy. It had become impossible for him to talk by the middle of May, and he had left the program. Rees died on July 10 at his home in New York City at the age of 71. In his honour, the marquee lights at all the theatres on Broadway were dimmed on Wednesday, July 15th, 2015. His remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean. At the New Amsterdam Theatre in Broadway, there was a memorial service for him two months later. Rees was inducted into the Broadway Theatre Hall of Fame on November 16, 2015, posthumously.

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Career

Rees continued his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Malcolm in Macbeth's acclaimed Trevor Nunn 1976 stage and 1978 television version. Rees was the lead in David Edgar's stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby in 1980 and a Tony Award for Best Actor in a New Play in 1982. In 1983, a film version of the play also earned him an Emmy Award. In 1982, Tom Stoppard's original production of The Real Thing appeared at the Strand Theatre in London.

Rees began to work in television in the 1980s, starring Laurence Olivier in The Ebony Tower (1984). In the same year, Rees portrayed Fred Hollywell in A Christmas Carol, which he also narrated, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge. He appeared in God's Outlaw, 1986, at William Tyndale. He appeared in British sitcom Singles from 1988 to 1991, alongside co-star Judy Loe. He appeared on American television shows Cheers from 1989 to 1993, as the English business tycoon Robin Colcord, a love interest for Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley). In numerous episodes of The West Wing from 2000 to 2005, he appeared as British Ambassador Lord John Marbury. Mr. Racine, a substitute teacher on My So-Called Life, and James MacPherson on Warehouse 13 were among his later television appearances. In the 1980s, his film career began. In the Mel Brooks film, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Rees played the Sheriff of Rottingham. Frida (2002), The Prestige (2006), and The Pink Panther (2006) were among Rees' later film appearances.

Rees, who appeared as an actor and a producer, received an Obie Award for his 1992 appearance in the Off-Broadway play The End of the Day. In 1995, he was nominated for the Best Actor in a Play for his role in Indiscretions. Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil was one of Anne Rice's many audiobooks, including Memnoch the Devil.

Rees was the artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival from November 2004 to October 2007, making him the fourth individual to hold the post in the festival's half-century history. Nathan Lane appeared in Gomez Addams' Broadway musical version on March 22, 2011 and continued until the end of the show on December 31, 2011.

Rees brought his one-man Shakespeare performance, What You Will, to London's West End in 2012, when he appeared at the Apollo Theatre for three weeks.

Crispin Whitell's play The Primrose Path at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 2013 was directed by Rees. Rees directed Dog and Pony, a musical written by Rick Elice and Michael Patrick Walker and premiered at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in 2014.

Anton Schell was cast in The Visit, opposite Chita Rivera, opening on Broadway on April 23rd 2015 and concluding on June 14th, 2015. Rees resigned from the production in May 2015 due to his illness.

In the fall of 2016, Rees was supposed to have directed a new musical composed by Elice and Will Van Dyke, Magnificent Climb. He was also scheduled to perform his one-man Shakespeare performance, What You Will in New York in the fall of 2015 and had hoped to return to the Royal Shakespeare Company for a short time in Don Quixote in 2016. He was accepted as a complete member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, the exclusive entertainment fraternity.

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