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Biography
Sir Alan Bates (1934-2003) was an exceptionally versatile and talented actor. After his national service in the Royal Air Force, he won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, where his contemporaries included Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole. When he graduated, three years later, he began his professional stage career with the Midlands Theatre Company.
In 1956 he became one of the founder members of George Devine's English Stage Company at the Royal Court in London. He was in plays by Angus Wilson, Arthur Miller, Nigel Dennis and Wycherley, but it was his appearances in Osborne's ground-breaking play Look Back In Anger (1956) that brought Bates his first great success. It was a part he was to play, with intervals for almost two years, including a Broadway run and a Moscow tour. In 1960, he played Mick in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker with a memorable smiling menace that intimidated Donald Pleasance’s tramp.
His stage successes led to a batch of 1960s films. In the first of these, in 1960, he played one of Laurence Olivier’s sons in The Entertainer. Larger and more impressive roles followed, including the Christ-like hobo in Whistle Down The Wind (1961), a man forced into a shotgun marriage in A Kind Of Loving (1962), a reprise of his stage-role Mick in The Caretaker (1963), an aesthetic Englishman in Zorba The Greek (1964), Gabriel Oak in Far From The Madding Crowd (1967), and Oliver Reed’s naked wrestling partner in Ken Russell's Women In Love (1969).
He continued to make films throughout his life and, because he seemed far more concerned about the acting challenge than the possibilities of financial success, he often appeared in experimental rather than commercial films. These include A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972), Butley (1976) and Nijinsky (1980).
Although he was a fine film star, it was on stage that his full range of acting skills were displayed. Although he occasionally appeared in classical plays, it was in modern drama that he was at his best. He created the leading roles in many important plays written by modern British playwrights, including Simon Gray's Butley (1971), Otherwise Engaged (1975) for which Bates won an Evening Standard Best Actor award, Stage Struck (1979) and Melon (1987); Harold Pinter's One for the Road (1984); John Osborne's A Patriot For Me; Peter Shaffer’s Yonadab (1985); and Thomas Bernhard's The Showman (1993).
Sir Alan Bates was awarded a CBE in 1995 and a knighthood in 2003.
| Items for Sale on Collectors' Post |
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| 012095 |
Theatre: Programs (UK) - post 1939 | A PATRIOT FOR ME (by John Osborne) with ALAN BATES |
| 014750 |
Theatre: Programs (UK) - post 1939 | DANCE OF DEATH (by August Strindberg; adapt. Ted Whitehead) with ALAN BATES & FRANCES DE LA TOUR |
| 010199 |
Theatre: Playbills | LOOK BACK IN ANGER (by John Osborne) |
| 016569 |
Theatre: Playbills | THE CARETAKER (by Haold Pinter) with DONALD PLEASENCE, ROBERT SHAW & ALAN BATES |
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