Alan Bates Autograph: Signed Photo. CoA

Size: 4 x 6 inches. Very fine condition.

Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE (February 17, 1934 – December 27, 2003) was an English actor.

Bates was hand-picked by director John Schlesinger to star in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) in the role of Dr. Daniel Hirsh. Even though he wanted the part very much, Bates was held up filming The Go-Between (1970) for director Joseph Losey and also became a father around that time, so he had to pass on the project, with regrets. 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.

Bates starred in such international films as Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, Zorba the Greek, The Go-Between, Nijinsky, An Unmarried Woman and Women in Love (in which, along with Oliver Reed, he became the first actor to do frontal nudity in a major studio motion picture) but he consciously decided to concentrate on a few well-defined roles, rather than to take everything that came his way. On television, his parts ranged from classic roles such as The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978) to Guy Burgess in An Englishman Abroad (1983) to a Russian spy in Pack of Lies (1987) to the storyteller in the 2000 version of the Arabian Nights.

Bates played Antonius Agrippa in the 2004 TV film Spartacus, but died before it debuted.

Item ID: col-2161