Sir Alan Bates, the actor who made his name with a string of acclaimed stage and screen performances spanning almost five decades, has died aged 69. He had been suffering from cancer of the liver and died at a London clinic on Saturday night.
Sir Alan, one of the most versatile and explosive actors of his generation, came to prominence in 1956 after his performance in John Osborne's landmark play Look Back in Anger.
He went on to establish himself as an accomplished screen actor, appearing in more than 50 films. Earlier this year he was knighted in the new year's honours list, adding to the CBE he was awarded in 1996.
The Oscar-winning actor and MP Glenda Jackson, who starred with Bates in Women in Love, in which he wrestled naked with Oliver Reed, said he had been unafraid to take risks.
"The longer he lived, the better an actor he became," Ms Jackson told Sky TV. "Look Back in Anger totally transformed British theatre. But as he matured as an individual his acting became broader and deeper and he always brought the unexpected to everything he did," she said.
The son of an insurance broker, Bates won a a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (Rada) where he met Peter O'Toole and Albert Finney.
In 1956 he took a starring role in Look Back in Anger. His performance made him an overnight sensation in Britain and America and triggered a lifelong love affair with the theatre.
He also appeared in some of the most memorable films of the 1960s, including Bryan Forbes' Whistle Down the Wind, and John Schlesinger's A Kind of Loving and Far From The Madding Crowd.
He married Victoria Ward in 1970 and a year later she gave birth to twin sons, Tristan and Benedick, who both took up acting. Tristan died in 1990 following an asthma attack and Bates' wife passed away two years later.
After his son's death, Bates and his remaining son, Benedick, set up the Tristan Bates Theatre at the Actors Centre in Covent Garden, London.
Paul Hill, a close friend and neighbour of the actor for the last 30 years, said: "Alan was a very warm, considerate and self-effacing man who took his work very seriously. He was not interested in being a celebrity, he just cared about the art of acting - he was interested in quality."
Mr Hill, 62, a university professor who befriended Bates when the actor's parents moved to the village of Bradbourne, in Derbyshire, added: "He cared about people. There was nothing extrovert about him and he never expected special treatment from anyone. He will be sorely missed."
Despite widespread respect from his peers, Bates was nominated for only one Oscar - best actor in 1969 for John Frankenheimer's The Fixer.
The British Academy of Film and Television nominated him on six occasions, most recently for the 2001 mini-series Love in a Cold Climate, based on Nancy Mitford's satire of the British aristocracy.
His skill for picking classy projects was underlined when he appeared in the 2001 film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman. The film received critical acclaim in Britain and the US.
In an interview with the Sunday Times in January this year, Bates said the deaths of his wife and son had had a profound effect on him.
"That was a hugely strong part of my life and it's gone, when it shouldn't have gone. But my feelings didn't die."
He added: "Whatever is left of my life, and I might die tomorrow, I am still doing for them. If life is that tenuous you have got to use the time."
A Guardian review of his portrayal of Solness, an ageing architect in Peter Hall's 1995 production of Ibsen's The Master Builder, praised the actor's ability to transform himself into a "haunted, conscience-stricken figure", which ensured that the production was "exquisitely balanced".
Life in films
1960 The Entertainer
1961 Whistle Down the Wind
1962 A Kind of Loving
1964 Zorba the Greek
1966 Georgy Girl
1967 Far from the Madding Crowd
1968 The Fixer
1969 Women in Love
1971 The Go-Between
1978 The Shout
2001 Gosford Park