Alan Arthur Bates was born on February 17, 1934 in Allestrie, a suburb of Derby, to an insurance agent and a housewife. His parents wanted their son to become a concert pianist, however, while still a high school student, he made a firm decision to become an actor and began taking private acting lessons and developing proper pronunciation. Eventually, Bates became a fellow of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he studied for three years. He then served in the Royal Air Force and in 1955 made his debut at the Midland Theatre in Coventry. The following year, Bates joined the newly formed repertoire English Theatre Company, with which he performed for the first time in London at the Royal Court Theatre, playing Cliff in John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger. In the same role in 1957, he appeared on Broadway.
Important stages in his theater career were the roles of Edmund in the play by Eugene O'Neill "The Long Journey into the Night" and Mick in "The Watchman" by Harold Pinter. Bates' repertoire mainly included works by contemporary authors Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett, Harold Pinter, Simon Gray, but he occasionally played in the classic plays of Shakespeare and Chekhov. Previously working with Tony Richardson on the stage, Bates made his film debut in his film The Comedian (1960) with Lawrence Olivier. Two years later, he starred in the role of a fugitive killer who accidentally found shelter with naive village children in Brian Forbes’ debut film Throwing Words to the Wind (1961). After Bates played the entangled in his family life of a young engineer Vic Brown in the social drama “This Love” (1962, dir. John Schlesinger), he along with his contemporary actors, such as Albert Finney and Tom Courtney, became the personification of a generation of “angry young people” of the new wave of British cinema. Among his characters are the timid and indecisive writer Basil in the drama Zorba the Greek (1964, directed by Michael Kakoyannis) and the disillusioned school inspector Rupert Birkin in the film adaptation of the novel by David Herbert Lawrence Women in Love (1969, directed by Ken Russell). Played in the film “The Workshop” (1968, John Frankenheimer), the role of a poor Jew Jacob Bock, accused of a wave of anti-Semitism in a murder he did not commit, brought the actor in 1969 nominations for Oscars and Golden Globes. Bates also starred in leading roles in such films as Nothing but the Best (1964, directed by Clive Donner), The King of Hearts (1966, directed by Philip De Broca) and Far from the Mad Crowd (1967, directed by John Schlesinger).
In 1970, Bates played on the stage of Hamlet in Nottingham and London, and two years later appeared on Broadway in a play based on Simon Gray's play Batley. The production brought Bates the American Tony Award for Best Actor, and soon he starred in the film version of this play, staged by the famous director and playwright Harold Pinter. In 1973, Bates spent a season with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, appearing on stage as Petrucio in The Taming of the Shrew. In the first half of the seventies, he made several notable films, including Vershinin in The Three Sisters (1970, Lawrence Olivier) and the lover of a young aristocrat, a simple farmer Ted Burgess in The Mediator (1972, dir. Joseph Lowsey). Demonstrating sometimes indifference to commercial success, he preferred to take on roles in which his extraordinary talent could fully manifest. Bates had a multifaceted acting talent, but he was best at the psychological portraits he created on the screen, playing his heroes and antiheroes with equal persuasiveness. Even acting in secondary roles, Bates remained at the level of the leading actors engaged in the film. During his long career in cinema, he created a number of memorable images. Among them are the famous theatrical entrepreneur Sergei Diaghilev in Nizhinsky (1980, dir. Herbert Ross), the military, who lost his memory after a concussion in Return of the Soldier (1981, dir. Alan Bridges), the former Soviet spy Guy Burgess in English Abroad (1983, dir. John Schlesinger), the cruel gangster Jack Mean in Vacation Prayer (1987, dir. Mike Hodges). True to his theatrical roots, he also played Claudius in Hamlet (1990, directed by Franco Zeffirelli) and Gaev in The Cherry Orchard (1999, directed by Michael Kakoyannis).
Bates continued to work actively in the theater until the end of his life - he continued to collaborate with Simon Gray and Harold Pinter, played in productions of various theater groups, and in 2002 returned to Broadway, winning the Tony Award for the role of Vasily Semenovich Kuzovki in the play "Nazovnik". It was his hard work in theater, film and television that helped him survive the loss of loved ones: in 1990, his son Tristan died of an asthma attack, and two years later, Bates’ wife Victoria Ward died. For merits in the field of theatrical art, the actor in 1995 was promoted to commander of the British Empire, and in 2003 he was awarded the title of nobility. One of Bates' most recent and dramatic film roles was the carefully concealed hypocritical butler Jennings in Robert Altman's detective drama Gosford Park (2001). Shortly before his death, the actor starred in the action thriller The Sentence (2003, Norman Jewison) with the participation of Michael Caine. Sir Alan Arthur Bates died of cancer in London on December 27, 2003.
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