Rhys was born in Neath and studied at RADA. While there, he obtained his first major screen role, in Absolute Beginners (1986). The following year he appeared in the BBC serialisation of My Family and Other Animals. Since then he has seldom been off UK television screens and his first US exposure was when legendary American film director Robert Altman cast Rhys as Theo in Vincent and Theo.

In 1995, he portrayed Simon Templar (aka "The Saint") for a series of radio plays. In 1998 he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his performance in King Lear. He played "Hamlet" at The Young Vic in London in 2000 for which he received several awards. He has won several other film, television and stage awards.

He had a seven-year relationship with the late Australian actress Arkie Whiteley, with whom he appeared in Gallowglass.

Real life roles played by Rhys have included Ludwig van Beethoven and Peter Mandelson.

Paul has filmed the highly successful series Being Human in which he played vampire, Ivan . He went on to film Luther with Idris Elba and , a British Independent espionage comedy in which he plays Archie.

He is writing a book of his life and experiences since the time of the play Paul at The National theatre.

Films

Television

Theatre

References

External links

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In addition to police procedurals starring her most iconic creation, Chief Inspector Wexford, Rendell writes psychological crime novels exploring such themes as romantic obsession, misperceived communication, the impact of chance and coincidence, and the humanity of the criminals involved. Among such books are A Judgement In Stone, The Face of Trespass, Live Flesh, Talking to Strange Men, The Killing Doll, Going Wrong and Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. Many credit her and close friend P. D. James for upgrading the entire genre of whodunit, shaping it more into a whydunit. Rendell's protagonists are often socially isolated, suffer from mental illness, and/or are otherwise disadvantaged; she explores the adverse impacts of their circumstances on these characters as well as on their victims.

Rendell created a third strand of writing with the publication in 1986 of A Dark-Adapted Eye under her pseudonym Barbara Vine (the name derives from her own middle name and her grandmother's maiden name). King Solomon's Carpet, A Fatal Inversion and Asta's Book (alternative US title, Anna's Book), among others, inhabit the same territory as her psychological crime novels while further developing themes of human misunderstandings and the unintended consequences of family secrets and hidden crimes. Rendell is famous for her elegant prose and sharp insights into the human mind, as well as her ability to create cogent plots and characters. Rendell has also injected the social changes of the last 40 years into her work, bringing awareness to such issues as domestic violence and the change in the status of women.

Rendell has received many awards for her writing, including the Silver, Gold, and Cartier Diamond Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association, three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America, The Arts Council National Book Awards, and The Sunday Times Literary Award. A number of her works have been adapted for film or television.

Politics

In 1998 Rendell was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party.

Early life

Bibliography

Novels

Inspector Wexford series

Written as Barbara Vine

Novellas

Short story collections

Uncollected short stories

Non-fiction

Awards and honours

Adaptations of her works

Many of her other works have been adapted for film and television. She has said that Chabrol's 1995 version of A Judgement in Stone, La Cérémonie with Sandrine Bonnaire is one of the few film adaptations of her work that she is happy with. The novel was also filmed in 1986 with Rita Tushingham. Chabrol also made La Demoiselle d'honneur in 2004, based on The Bridesmaid.

Other adaptations are Diary of the Dead (1976) from the book One Across, Two Down); the 1997 Pedro Almodóvar film Live Flesh; The Tree of Hands, directed by Giles Foster for Granada with Lauren Bacall; and another version of The Tree of Hands, Betty Fisher et autres histoires (2001, aka Alias Betty), with screenplay and direction by Claude Miller.

References

External links

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Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE (17 February 193427 December 2003) was an English actor.

Early life

Both of his parents were amateur musicians, and encouraged him to pursue music, but by age 11, young Bates already had determined his life's course as an actor, and so they sent him for dramatic coaching instead. He also saw productions at Derby's Little Theatre.

He was educated at the Herbert Strutt Grammar School (amalgamated in 1973 with two secondary modern schools and renamed Belper High School, which has now become Belper School although the former buildings are now the Herbert Strutt primary school) on Thornhill Avenue in Belper, Derbyshire and later earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he studied with Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole, before leaving to join the RAF for National Service at RAF Newton.

Career

Bates was handpicked by director John Schlesinger (with whom he had previously worked on Far From The Madding Crowd) to star in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) in the role of Dr. Daniel Hirsh. Bates was held up filming The Go-Between (1970) for director Joseph Losey, and had also become a father around that time, and so he had to pass on the project. 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.

Around this time he appeared as Col. Vershinin in the National Theatre's film of Three Sisters, directed by and co-starring Laurence Olivier.

Bates continued to work in film and television throughout the 1970s and 80s, and starred in such international films as An Unmarried Woman (1978), Nijinsky (1980), and also played Bette Midler's ruthless business manager in the 1979 film The Rose. On television, his parts ranged from classic roles such as 1978's The Mayor of Casterbridge (his favourite role he said), in the Laurence Olivier Presents episode of Harold Pinter's The Collection (1976), A Voyage Round My Father (1982) working again with Laurence Olivier, An Englishman Abroad (1983) (playing Guy Burgess), and Pack of Lies (1987) (in which he played a Russian spy). He continued working in film and television in the 1990s, including the role of Claudius in Mel Gibson's version of Hamlet (1990), though most of his roles in this era were more low-key.

In 2001, Bates joined an all-star cast in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed period drama Gosford Park, in which he played the butler Jennings. He later played Antonius Agrippa in the 2004 TV film Spartacus, but died before it debuted. The film was dedicated to his memory and that of writer Howard Fast, who wrote the original novel that inspired the film Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick.

On stage, Bates had a particular association with the plays of Simon Gray, appearing in Butley, Otherwise Engaged, Stage Struck, Melon, Life Support and Simply Disconnected, as well as the film of Butley and Gray's TV series Unnatural Pursuits. In Otherwise Engaged, Bates' co-star was Ian Charleson, who became a good friend, and Bates later contributed a chapter to the 1990 book, For Ian Charleson: A Tribute.

Bates was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1996, and was knighted in 2003. He was an Associate Member of RADA and was a patron of The Actors Centre, Covent Garden, London from 1994 until his death in 2003.

Personal life

Bates had numerous homosexual relationships throughout his life, including those with actors Nickolas Grace and Peter Wyngarde, and Olympic skater John Curry. Even when homosexuality was partially decriminalised in Britain in 1967, Bates rigorously avoided interviews and questions about his personal life, and even denied to his lovers that there was a gay component in his nature. is the only authorized biography of Alan Bates. It was written with the full and complete cooperation of his son Benedick Bates and Bates' younger brother Martin, and includes more than one hundred interviews with people such as Michael Linnit and Rosalind Chatto.

Tristan Bates Theatre

Selected filmography

Other projects and contributions

Awards

References

External links

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