Alan bates funeral

Sir Alan Arthur Bates 17 February — 27 December was an English actor who came to prominence in the s , when he appeared in films ranging from Whistle Down the Wind to the " kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving.

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He also appeared on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray , such as Butley and Otherwise Engaged. Both parents were amateur musicians who encouraged Bates to pursue music. By the age of 11, having decided to become an actor, he studied drama instead. Bates's stage debut was in , in You and Your Wife , in Coventry. Bates made his feature film debut in The Entertainer opposite Laurence Olivier.

Both films were very popular, establishing Bates as a film star. Film critics cited the film noir The Running Man as being one of Bates' finest performances. The film starred Laurence Harvey as a man who fakes his death, with Bates in the supporting role of Stephen Maddox, an insurance company investigator. He followed it appearing as Col.

Bates was held up filming The Go-Between for director Joseph Losey alongside Christie, and had also become a father around that time, and so he had to refuse the role. The part then went first to Ian Bannen , who balked at kissing and simulating sex with another man, and then to Peter Finch who earned an Academy Award nomination for the role.

In the latter he played Michael Henchard, the ultimately-disgraced lead, which he described as his favourite role. He starred in such international films as An Unmarried Woman and Nijinsky , and also played Bette Midler 's ruthless business manager in the film The Rose Bates played two diametrically opposed roles in An Englishman Abroad , as Guy Burgess , a member of the Cambridge spy ring exiled in Moscow, and in Pack of Lies , as a British Secret Service agent tracking several Soviet spies.