British star of stage and screen Alan Bates has died after losing a long fight with cancer, his agent said Sunday.
Bates, 69, died in a London hospital on Saturday with his son and brother at his side.
“He has passed away,” agent Rosalind Chatto told Reuters. “He had a long battle with cancer.”
He came to fame as one of a new breed of gritty actors as Britain threw off its post-war shackles — the “Angry Young Man” era — and was knighted earlier this year after a career spanning six decades.
His big break came with John Osborne’s play “Look Back in Anger” in 1956. But Bates went on to play classical leads on the stage in “Hamlet,” “Richard III” and “Antony and Cleopatra.”On the big screen, he starred in films such as “Zorba the Greek,” “Far From The Madding Crowd” and “Women in Love,” in which he famously grappled naked with Oliver Reed.More recently, in 2001, he featured in director Robert Altman’s period drama “Gosford Park.”Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson, who starred with Bates in “Women in Love,” said he had been unafraid to take risks.“The longer he lived, the better an actor he became,” Jackson, now a politician, told Sky television.“’Look Back in Anger’ ... totally transformed British theatre,” she said. “But as he matured as an individual, his acting became broader and deeper and he always brought the unexpected to everything he did.”Bates suffered personal tragedies in recent years.His son Tristan died in 1990 aged 19 and his wife, the actress Victoria Ford, died two years later.