Alan Bates

By RICHARD CORLISS

DIED. ALAN BATES, 69, bluff, beguiling English actor; of pancreatic cancer; in London. A modest giant bestriding nearly a half-century of excellence, the Derbyshire lad co-starred at 22 in the original London stage production of Look Back in Anger. But the Angry Young Man tag never quite fit Bates' protean gifts. As a charming killer in Nothing But the Best or a Jewish prisoner in The Fixer, wrestling nude in Women in Love or incarnating the lonely spy Guy Burgess in An Englishman Abroad, he brought strength, delicacy, wit and humanity to each role. In films he often chaperoned showier stars (Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek, Lynn Redgrave in Georgy Girl, Bette Midler in The Rose) to Oscar nominations; he was the solid ground they danced on. The stage allowed him to dominate. He radiated silky malevolence in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, a tonic cynicism in Simon Gray's Butley, a charming naivete in Turgenev's Fortune's Fool. Bates' brilliance was too often taken for granted. His absence leaves a profound hole in our theater and film life.

--By Richard Corliss