Coordinates: 53°54′18″N 1°41′13″W / 53.905°N 1.687°W / 53.905; -1.687

Otley
The River Wharfe at Otley
Otley  Otley shown within West Yorkshire
Population	14,124 (2001)
OS grid reference	SE205455
- London	193 miles
Civil parish	Otley
Metropolitan borough	City of Leeds
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	OTLEY
Postcode district	LS21
Dialling code	01943
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
EU Parliament	Yorkshire and the Humber
UK Parliament	Leeds North West
List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire

Otley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, by the River Wharfe. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town has a total resident population of 14,124.^[1] The town hosts Wharfedale General Hospital which serves the surrounding area.

History[link]

Toponymy[link]

Otley's name is derived from Othe, Otho or Otta, a Saxon personal name and leah, a woodland clearing in Old English. It was recorded as Ottanlege in 972 and Otelai or Othelia in the Domesday Book of 1086.^[2][3] The name Chevin has close parallels to the Welsh term Cefn meaning ridge and may be a survival of the ancient Cumbric language.

Early history[link]

The town dates from Saxon times and was part of an extensive manor granted by Athelstan to the see of York. The Archbishops of York had a residence and were lords of the manor. Their palace was located on the site occupied by the Manor House.^[3] Otley is close to Leeds and may have formed part of the kingdom of Elmet. Remains of the Archbishop's Palace were found during the construction of St Joseph's School. The town grew in the first half of the 13th century when the archbishops laid out burgage plots to attract merchants and tradespeople. The burgage plots were on Boroughgate, Walkergate and Kirkgate. Bondgate was for tenants who did not have 'burgage' privileges. A leper hospital was founded on the road to Harewood beyond Cross Green.^[4]

Documented history for the market begins in 1222 when King Henry III granted the first Royal Charter. The town had two cattle markets, Wharfedale Farmers' Auction Mart on East Chevin Road and the Bridge End Auction Mart which has closed and was subsequently demolished. Market days are Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, and there is a Farmers' Market on the last Sunday of every month.

Thomas Chippendale, the cabinetmaker, was born in a cottage at the junction of Boroughgate and Wesley Street^[4] and his statue stands next to the old Grammar School in Manor Square that he once attended. J.M.W. Turner, the painter, visited Otley in 1797, aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned time and time again. His friendship with Walter Ramsden Fawkes made him a regular visitor to Farnley Hall, two miles from Otley. The stormy backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired by a storm over Otley's Chevin while Turner was staying at Farnley Hall.

Industrial revolution[link]

Weir on the River Wharfe at Otley

The woollen industry developed as a cottage industry but during the Industrial revolution and the mechanisation of the textile industry, mills were built using water then steam power. A cotton mill and weaving shed for calicoes were built by the river in the late 18th-century. Later woolcombing and worsted spinning were introduced.^[4] By the mid 19th century 500 inhabitants were employed in two worsted-mills, a paper-mill, and other mills.^[3] A tannery was established in the 19th-century.^[4]

The Wharfedale Printing Machine was developed in Otley by William Dawson and David Payne.^[5] An early example can be seen in Otley Museum. By 1900 the printing machinery trade, with over 2,000 people employed in seven machine shops was Otley's most important industry.^[4]

Governance[link]

Historically Otley was a market-town and ecclesiastical parish in the wapentakes of Skyrack and Claro in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was the seat of the Mid-Wharfedale Urban District council until local council reorganisation in 1974 and since then it is a civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Otley lies in the Leeds North West constituency of the UK Parliament and is represented by MP Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrats). It is part of the Otley & Yeadon ward on Leeds City Council and is represented by three Liberal Democrat Councillors Ryk Downes, Colin Campbell & Graham Kirkland. It is twinned with the French town of Montereau-Fault-Yonne, south of Paris.

Otley and Wharfedale ward has a population of 24,000, and Otley itself has a population of 14,348, according to Census 2001.

Geography[link]

A view over Otley.

Otley lies 28 miles south-west of York, 10 miles north-west of Leeds, 10 miles north-east of Bradford, and 196 miles from London. The town lies in lower Wharfedale at a bridging point of the River Wharfe where there is a seven arched bridge and is surrounded by arable farmland. The south side of the valley is dominated by a gritstone escarpment overlooking Otley called The Chevin and to the north is Newall Carr.^[3] In 1944, Major Le G.G.W. Horton Fawkes of Farnley Hall donated 263 acres (1.1 km²) of land on the Chevin to the people of Otley. This has been expanded to 700 acres (2.8 km²) and constitutes Chevin Forest Park. It was from a quarry on the Chevin that the foundation stones for the Houses of Parliament were hewn.

To the east and west of Otley are flooded gravel pits, where sand and gravel have been extracted in the 20th century. The gravel pits to the east at Knotford Nook are a noted birdwatching site. Those to the west are devoted to angling and sailing.

To the west are the villages of Burley-in-Wharfedale and Menston. To the east is Pool-in-Wharfedale.

Location grid

Neighbouring towns, villages and places.

	Ilkley, Skipton	Washburn Valley, Blubberhouses	Harrogate
	Keighley		Wetherby
		Otley    East
	Bradford	Pudsey	Leeds

Transport[link]

The main roads through the town are the A660 to the south east, which connects Otley to Bramhope, Adel and Leeds city centre, and the A65 to the west, which goes to Ilkley and Skipton. The A6038 heads to Guiseley, Shipley and Bradford, connecting with the A65. To Harrogate, the A659 heads east to the A658, which is the main Bradford-Harrogate road.

Public transport is coordinated by West Yorkshire Metro and services are operated by FirstGroup plc West and North Yorkshire, TLC, Utopia and Harrogate Coach Travel. There are local services connecting the town and outlying areas. Otley has a bus station is served by the following services:

• X84: Leeds - Bramhope - Otley - Ilkley - Skipton
• 33A: Leeds - Kirkstall - Horsforth - Yeadon - Guiseley - Otley
• 967: Leeds - Leeds Bradford International Airport - Pool - Otley - Menston
• X52: Ilkley - Otley - Pool - Harrogate
• X53: Guisley- Otley - Pool-in-Wharfedale - Harrogate
• 923: Otley - Pool-in-Wharfedale - Tadcaster
• 940: Otley Hostpital - Otley - Pool-in-Wharfedale - Bramhope - Holt Park - Cookridge

Otley railway station opened in 1865 and closed in March 1965, the town bypass follows the line of the old railway. A bus service (967) runs from Menston station, which is on the Wharfedale Line from Leeds, Bradford and Ilkley. The X52 and X53 bus services stop at Weeton station on the Harrogate Line.

Otley is close to Leeds Bradford International Airport, and the 757 bus service connects directly to the town.

Education[link]

the Old Prince Henry's Grammar School

A grammar school was founded by Thomas Cave who named it "The Grammar School of Prince Henry." It is built in the Elizabethan style and also used as a court-house.^[3] Its successor is Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley in Farnley Lane. Further Education is provided by Park Lane College Leeds' Otley Centre

Otley has a number of primary schools, Ashfield Primary School, Otley All Saints Primary School, The Whartons Primary School, Westgate Primary School and St. Joseph's Catholic Primary School.

Closed schools include, Thomas Chippendale Primary School (previously Weston Lane Middle School), All Saints CE Junior School, Ashfield Infant School, Newall Primary School, Otley secondary modern school, Otley National School and The Whartons Primary School.

Religion[link]

Otley's first church was built in the early 7th century. In All Saints Parish Church there are the remains of two early Anglo-Saxon crosses, one of which has been reproduced for the town's war memorial. Its church was the centre of an ancient ecclesiastical parish which comprised the chapelries of Baildon, Bramhope, Burley in Wharfedale, Denton, and Farnley, and the townships of Esholt, Hawksworth, Lindley, Menston, Newall with Clifton, Pool-in-Wharfedale, and Little Timble. All Saints Church dates from the 12th century and was built in the Norman style but little of the original remains, except the north doorway.^[3][6]

Buried in the graveyard is an ancestor of the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the grandparents of Thomas Fairfax who commanded Parliament's forces at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644. In the graveyard of the parish church stands a replica of the entrance to Bramhope Tunnel, a monument to those killed during its construction.

Methodist preacher John Wesley was a frequent visitor to the town in the 18th century. Allegedly his horse died in the town and is buried in the grounds of the parish church. Its grave is marked by an unusual stone, also known locally as the "Donkey Stone". His Journal for 1761 reads, "6 July Monday; In the evening I preached at Otley and afterwards talked with many of the Society. There is reason to believe that ten or twelve of these are filled with the love of God." Wesley Street is named after him.

Culture and community[link]

Otley Show in 2009.

Otley has a diverse range of cultural organisations. It has five active Morris dance sides, the Wharfedale Wayzgoose, (Border),^[7] The Buttercross Belles (Ladies Northwest), Flash Company (Border, Molly, Appalachian & Clog), Hellz Bellz (Contemporary) and Kitchen Taps (Appalachian Step).

Drama groups include Otley Community Players, Otley Youth Theatre (OY) and a thriving arts centre in the former courthouse. There is a poetry society which meets in the Black Horse Hotel monthly. The town has a Brass Band who perform at many events in the town. It is not a regular contesting band, but won first prize in the unregistered section at their first contest at Hardraw Scar in September 2007, repeating the accomplishment in 2008.

Otley hosts the annual Otley Folk Festival in September, a Victorian Fayre in December, a carnival in June and in May, what is reputed to be the oldest one day agricultural show in the country. This celebrated its bicentenary in 2009. There is a beer festival organised by the church in November.

Black Horse Hotel

Otley once vied with a handful of towns for the distinction of having the most pubs per head of population in England. It was mentioned in a BBC Radio 4 "More or Less" programme broadcast in April 2008. The story also featured on the BBC website [1].

There were 17 pubs in the town although the Spite (properly known as the Roebuck), the Chevin and the Royalty are on the outskirts, with the Spite located in North Yorkshire. The Black Horse Hotel situated in the town centre is historically the largest pub and hotel. The Black Bull in the Market Place, was allegedly drunk dry by Cromwell's troops on the night before the battle of Marston Moor during the English Civil War and has a 15th century well in the beer garden. The Junction Inn has won numerous awards including a CAMRA award for best pub. There is a working men's club located on Weston Lane north west of the town centre.

Otley has four Scout troops, the 2nd Otley, Otley Parish, Otley Bridge and Otley Methodist Scouts.^[8] An Army Cadet Force detachment is also located in the town.

Filmography[link]

Otley is "Hotton" in the ITV television soap opera Emmerdale, and appears in ITV's Heartbeat where Otley Courthouse is the old Police Station. The town was the setting for the drama series The Chase and the ITV dramatisation of The Bad Mother's Handbook.

Sport[link]

Cross Green rugby ground, the home ground of Otley RUFC.

Competitors take part in the annual Otley Cycle Race.

Otley R.U.F.C. play home matches at Cross Green,^[9] which was the venue for the Italy v USA fixture in the 1991 Rugby World Cup. In 1979 Cross Green was the site of a victory by the North of England against the All Blacks.^[10] Australia suffered the same fate in October, 1988. Otley R.U.F.C. finished 5th in National Division One in both the 2003-4 and 2004-5 seasons but were relegated to National Division Two at the end of the 2006-7 season. The club won National Division Two in 2007-8 and returned to National Division One for the 2008-9 season. Former England captain Nigel Melville began his career at Otley. Bath, Gloucester and England rugby footballer Mike Tindall was born in Otley. Old Otliensians RUFC club play in Yorkshire League 4.

Otley Town Football Club has teams in the Premier division of the West Yorkshire League, the Premier division of the Harrogate & District League and the reserves division of the West Yorkshire League. It runs junior teams including two girls' teams. The club is a Charter Standard football club run by volunteers.

The former Republic of Ireland defender Alan Kernaghan was also born in Otley. The town has a Sunday League team, Otley Wharfeside AFC who play in the Wharfedale Triangle Football League.[2],

Otley Cricket Club, founded in 1820, play in the Airedale and Wharfedale Senior Cricket League. The club has won the league title 13 times and shared it in 1966. The club has three senior teams.^[11] Otley Athletic Club meets at 7.15pm each Tuesday and Thursday at Otley Cricket Club, Cross Green.^[12]

Otley Angling Club was formed in 1897 by local land owners. It controls the fishing on the River Wharfe through Otley and a coarse fishing pond on the outskirts of the town. It runs regular fishing matches on the river and junior matches on the club pond.^[13]

Notable people[link]

• Lizzie Armitstead, British cyclist.
• David Thomas Broughton, folk singer and guitarist.
• General J N R (Nick) Houghton KCB, CBE, Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff.
• Julian Sands, British actor who is famous for his portrayal of a warlock in Warlock, Franz Liszt in Impromptu, and Vladirmir Bierko in the 24 series.
• Mike Tindall, England Rugby Union Captain

References[link]

Bibliography

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Otley

• Otley Town Council
• Otley Online
• Virtual Tour of Otley centre, and interactive map
• All Saints Church, Otley
• The Otley Brass, Palmes Family, 1593, All Saints Church, Otley
• Otley in Bloom
• Otley Courthouse Arts and Resource Centre
• Otley Amateur Radio Society
• Otley Beer Festival
• 2nd Otley Scout Group

Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider, June 1971
Born	Rosemarie Magdalena Albach (1938-09-23)23 September 1938 Vienna, Austria
Died	29 May 1982(1982-05-29) (aged 43) Paris, France
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1953–1982
Spouse	Harry Meyen (1966–1975) Daniel Biasini (1975–1981)
Partner	Alain Delon (1959–1963)

This article's lead section may not adequately summarize its contents. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of the article's key points. (December 2011)

Romy Schneider (23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was an Austrian-born German film actress who also held French citizenship.

Early life[link]

Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian father Wolf Albach-Retty and her German mother Magda Schneider. After her parents' divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolfi, eventually supervising the young girl's career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Career[link]

Romy Schneider's first film, made when she was 15, was Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilacs Bloom Again) in 1953, credited as Romy Schneider-Albach. In 1954, Schneider for the first time portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film Mädchenjahre einer Königin (known in the U.S. as The Story of Vickie and in Britain as Victoria in Dover). Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Sissi – The Young Empress (1956) and Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include Robinson soll nicht sterben (The Legend of Robinson Crusoe) (1957) putting her among a stellar cast and opposite a young Horst Buchholz, and Monpti (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner and again opposite Buchholz.

Schneider soon starred in Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film Liebelei (itself based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler and starring her mother Magda Schneider). It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She left Germany to join him in Paris and they announced their engagement in 1959.

Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial (1962), based upon Franz Kafka's The Trial and was introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti.

Under Visconti's direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella (and Delon as Giovanni) in John Ford's stage play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1961) and in the film Boccaccio '70 (segment: "The Job"). In 1962 Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff's production of Chekhov's play The Seagull, also at the Théâtre Moderne. A brief stint in Hollywood included appearances in Good Neighbor Sam, a 1964 comedy with Jack Lemmon, and 1965 What's New Pussycat? co-starring Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen who also wrote the screenplay.

Schneider and Delon decided to split up in 1963 although they remained close lifelong friends and continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) (1968) and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

Schneider during a shoot to Max et les Ferrailleurs

Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five occasions. Their first collaboration, Les choses de la vie (1970) with Michel Piccoli, was a huge success and made Schneider a household name in France. The three teamed up again for the noir thriller Max et les Ferrailleurs (1971), and she appeared opposite Yves Montand in Sautet's César et Rosalie (1972). Other successes included Le Train (1973), where she played a German-Jewish refugee in World War 2, Claude Chabrol's thriller Les innocents aux mains sales (1975) opposite Rod Steiger, and Le vieux fusil (1975). The gritty L'important c'est d'aimer (1974) garnered her first César Award (France's equivalent of the Oscar), a feat she repeated five years later, in her last collaboration with Sautet, for Une histoire simple (1978).

On 30 October 1974, Schneider created one of the most memorable moments on German television. She was the second guest on Dietmar Schönherr's talk show Je später der Abend (The Later the Evening) when she, after a rather terse interview, remarked passionately to the last guest, bank robber and author Burkhard Driest: "Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr." (I like you. I like you a lot.)^[6][7][8]

Ludwig, Visconti's 1972 film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, featured her as a much more complex, mature, even bitter Elisabeth of Austria. "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal", Schneider once said.^[9]

She also acted in Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde à vue (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder who wanted her to play the lead in his 1979 film The Marriage of Maria Braun. Negotiations broke down when he called Schneider a "dumb cow"^[10] and Schneider responded by declaring she would never work with such a beast as Fassbinder.

In 1980 she starred in Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La mort en direct), based on David G. Compton's novel, playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). Her last film was La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby), (1982).

Personal life[link]

In July 1966 Schneider married Harry Meyen (1924–1979), a German director and actor who committed suicide in Hamburg, Germany in 1979. The couple had a son, David Christopher, born on December 3, 1966. David died at the age of 14 on 5 July 1981. He had attempted to climb the spiked fence at his stepfather's parents' home when he punctured his femoral artery.

In 1975, Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they separated in 1981. Their daughter Sarah Biasini (born 21 July 1977) is now an actress.

Grave of Romy Schneider and her son in Boissy-sans-Avoir

Schneider began drinking alcohol in excess after the death of her son David. When she was found dead in her apartment in Paris on 29 May 1982, it was suggested that she had committed suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills. After another post-mortem examination was carried out, authorities declared that she had died from cardiac arrest. Her tombstone at Boissy-sans-Avoir in the Canton of Montfort-l'Amaury bears the name Rosemarie Albach. Shortly afterwards, Alain Delon arranged for David to be buried in the same grave.^[11]

Enduring popularity[link]

The French journalist Eugène Moineau initiated in 1984 the Prix Romy Schneider; this prize—the most prestigious award for promising actresses in the French film industry—is awarded by a jury each year in Paris in conjunction with the Prix Patrick Dewaere (formerly the Prix Jean Gabin). In 1990, the Austrian newspaper Kurier created the Romy TV Award in honour of Schneider. In 2003, she was voted 78th on the list of the greatest Germans in the German TV programme Unsere Besten (the German version of 100 Greatest Britons)—the second highest ranked actress (Marlene Dietrich was 50th) on that list. Until 2002, the Austrian Federal Railways InterCity service IC 535 from Wien Südbahnhof to Graz was named "Romy Schneider".^[12][13][14]

A movie about Schneider's life, titled Eine Frau wie Romy/Une femme comme Romy (A Woman Like Romy) was planned by Warner Bros. for 2009; Schneider's role was going to be played by Yvonne Catterfeld.^[15][16] The project was cancelled in July 2009.^[17] A musical about Schneider, Romy – Die Welt aus Gold (Romy – The Golden World) was premiered in 2009 at the Theater Heilbronn.^[18] In November 2009 the ARD broadcast the feature film Romy with Jessica Schwarz in the title role.^[19]

Filmography[link]

1. ^ L'Enfer remained unfinished in 1964; it was released as L' Enfer de Henri-Georges Clouzot in 2009 by Serge Bromberg.

Awards[link]

German stamp issued in 2000

• Bambi: 1957 nominated for Sissi
• Bravo Otto
  • 1957: Bronze
  • 1958: Gold
  • 1959: Silver
  • 1971: Silver
  • 1972: Bronze
  • 1977: Bronze
• Étoile de Cristal: 1963 for The Trial
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama: 1963 nominated for The Cardinal
• César Award for Best Actress
  • 1975: won for L'important c'est d'aimer
  • 1976: nominated for Une femme à sa fenêtre
  • 1978: won for Une histoire simple
  • 1979: nominated for Clair de femme
  • 1982: nominated for La Passante du Sans-Souci
• Deutscher Filmpreis Best Actress: 1977 for Group Portrait with Lady
• Premio David di Donatello: 1979 Lifetime Achievement
• 2008: Honorary César

Awards named after Romy Schneider[link]

• Prix Romy Schneider, French film award established in 1984
• Romy, Austrian award established in 1990

References[link]

Literature[link]

• Hans-Jürgen Tast: Romy Schneider – Ein Leben auf Titelseiten Schellerten 2008, ISBN 978-3-88842-036-8.
• Michael Töteberg: Romy Schneider, Rowohlt Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-50669-7

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Romy Schneider

Biography portal

• Romy Schneider at the Internet Movie Database

v t e César Award for Best Actress 1976 Romy Schneider 1977 Annie Girardot 1978 Simone Signoret 1979 Romy Schneider 1980 Miou-Miou 1981 Catherine Deneuve 1982 Isabelle Adjani 1983 Nathalie Baye 1984 Isabelle Adjani 1985 Sabine Azéma 1986 Sandrine Bonnaire 1987 Sabine Azéma 1988 Anémone 1989 Isabelle Adjani 1990 Carole Bouquet 1991 Anne Parillaud 1992 Jeanne Moreau 1993 Catherine Deneuve 1994 Juliette Binoche 1995 Isabelle Adjani 1996 Isabelle Huppert 1997 Fanny Ardant 1998 Ariane Ascaride 1999 Élodie Bouchez 2000 Karin Viard 2001 Dominique Blanc 2002 Emmanuelle Devos 2003 Isabelle Carré 2004 Sylvie Testud 2005 Yolande Moreau 2006 Nathalie Baye 2007 Marina Hands 2008 Marion Cotillard 2009 Yolande Moreau 2010 Isabelle Adjani 2011 Sara Forestier 2012 Bérénice Bejo

Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor, best known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series Rising Damp (1974–78), and Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79). These roles followed a long and distinguished career in the theatre.

Early life and stage work[link]

Rossiter was born in Liverpool, the son of Elizabeth (née Howell) and John Rossiter.^[1] He lived over the barber shop which had been owned by his father. He was educated at Liverpool Collegiate Grammar School (1939–46)^[2] and it was his ambition to go to university to read modern languages and become a teacher. His father, a voluntary ambulanceman during the Second World War, was killed in an air-raid in 1942. Having thus to support his mother, Rossiter was unable to take up the place he had been offered by Liverpool University.^[3] After being demobbed (he had served as a sergeant in the Army Education Corps and spent much of his national service in Germany writing letters home for soldiers), he went to work as an insurance clerk in the claims and accidents department of the Commercial Union Insurance Company for six years.^{[citation needed]}

He joined the Wavertree Community Centre Drama Group and made his first appearance with the Adastra Players in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path. The local critic said he "was particularly outstanding, his one fault being a tendency to speak too fast on one or two occasions".^[4] He gave up his insurance job to enroll in Preston repertory theatre and turned professional as an actor at the comparatively late age of 27. He made his stage debut in Joseph Colton's The Gay Dog in Preston on 6 September 1954, later becoming assistant stage manager. He went on to Wolverhampton and Salisbury repertory companies. In his first nineteen months in the business he played some 75 roles. He said later: "There was no time to discuss the finer points of interpretation. You studied the part, you did it and then you studied the next part. I developed a frightening capacity for learning lines. The plays became like elastoplast, which you just stuck on and then tore off. It was the perfect preparation for rehearsing situation comedy on television at the rate of one episode a week."^[5]

1957–58 he played in the musical Free as Air and then toured in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. He joined the Bristol Old Vic and was there for two years 1959–1961, time he described as 'the bedrock of his career', followed by much other stage work: as Brecht's Arturo Ui, The Strange Case of Martin Richter, Disabled, The Heretic, The Caretaker and Semi-Detached (in New York). His performance in Michael Blakemore's stage production of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in the late 1960s met with critical acclaim.^[6]

In 1969 he premiered in the UK in the title role of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. The part of the petty tyrant was perfectly suited to Rossiter and garnered critical and public acclaim.

Film and television career[link]

He broke into film roles with Billy Liar in which he plays the title character's boss. This brief role fixed him with audiences as an often flawed and inflexible authority figure – apparently similar to his real-life personality. Through the 1950s and 1960s he established himself as a respected actor in theatre and film, and began to make his presence felt on television, with a semi-regular role as Det-Insp Bamber in the police series Z-Cars, as well as guest roles in series as diverse as Steptoe and Son ("The Lead Man Cometh", 1964; "The Desperate Hours", 1972) and The Avengers episode "Dressed to Kill" (1963).

In 1968 he played Mr. Sowerberry in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical Oliver! and he landed one of the few speaking supporting roles in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as the Russian scientist Smyslov. He worked with Kubrick again, in Barry Lyndon seven years later. In the same year as 2001, he appeared in the prescient BBC TV play The Year of the Sex Olympics by Nigel Kneale.

In Rising Damp, on ITV, he played Rigsby, the lecherous landlord of a house converted into seedy bedsits, reprising the role from its successful stage version, entitled The Banana Box. While on Rising Damp, he also took the eponymous lead in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, adapted by David Nobbs from his own Reginald Perrin comic novels and aired on the BBC. His performances as Rigsby and Perrin earned him acclaim. He was given a surprise tribute on This Is Your Life in 1975. In 1979 he appeared in the Galton and Simpson scripted short film Le Pétomane.

From 1979 and into the early 1980s he branched out into advertising, making an advert dressed as a traffic warden for Parker Pens, and notably starring with Joan Collins as her boorish companion in a series of successful and endearing Cinzano commercials. In these adverts the drink would always somehow manage to be spilt down Melissa (Joan Collins)'s cleavage. In the 2000 Channel 4 programme The 100 Greatest TV Ads, Terry Lovelock, the director of several of these commercials, revealed that he found Rossiter difficult to work with, and that he used to jokingly refer to Collins as "The Prop".^{[citation needed]}

In the animated adaptation of The Perishers he provided the voice for Boot the dog. He reprised Rigsby for a film version of Rising Damp in 1980 — meaning he had now played the role on stage, TV and film. His last TV role was that of the supermarket manager in the eponymous Tripper's Day, an ITV sitcom. He continued to make a steady stream of cinema appearances, including a role in Lindsay Anderson's dark parable Britannia Hospital (1982).

He played the title role in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of The Life and Death of King John (1984). Rossiter's last film appearance was in Water (1985).

Writing[link]

He displayed his acid wit in two books: The Devil's Bedside Book in 1980, a collection of cynical dictionary definitions in the style of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, and The Lowest Form of Wit in 1981, a collection of biting bon mots, stinging retorts, and insults divided into six main sections, illustrated with cartoons (by Honeysett) and including a definitive guide and a history of sarcasm.

Personal life[link]

His first marriage was to Josephine Tewson, an actress he had worked with many times in rep in the 1950s and a cousin of actor John Inman; it ended in divorce in 1961.

His second wife was actress Gillian Raine, with whom he had a daughter, Camilla, and to whom he was still married at the time of his death.^[7]

Rossiter had met Raine when he played the lead role of Fred Midway in a play called Semi-Detached, directed by Tony Richardson. She was his co-star, playing Hilda Midway. The play opened on Friday 8 June 1962 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and ran for a week. At the time Rossiter's marriage with Josephine Tewson was about to break up. During the play's second run at the Belgrade, in September 1963 Leonard and Raine fell in love and moved in together, but they did not marry until 1972.^[8]

After his death it was revealed that during the early 1980s he had had an affair with broadcaster Sue MacGregor. However this was not revealed until long afterwards. His wife was unaware of the affair, describing their marriage as "up and down". She received a letter from MacGregor breaking the news that her memoirs, which were about to be published, would include an account of the affair.^[9]

Death[link]

Rossiter died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 1984 while waiting to go onstage at the Lyric Theatre, London, where he was performing in Joe Orton's play, Loot. His funeral took place at St. Mary's Church, The Boltons, London.

Books by Rossiter[link]

• Leonard Rossiter, Devil's Bedside Book, Littlehampton: 1980; ISBN 0-600-20105-8.

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Leonard Rossiter at the Internet Movie Database
• Performances listed in the Theatre Archive University of Bristol
• LeonardRossiter.com: Authorised Web Site