Friday, September 25, 2009
ALAN BATES
I first saw Alan Bates, without knowing it, when I saw Lawrence Olivier's The Entertainer. He was one of the two erstwhile sons of Archie, the fading showman.
He had considerable impact.
Then, I would have seen him in Zorba which I saw again the other day. I certainly would have recognized him as a great talent at that time. From then on, I tried to see all his movies.
Bates was a successful stage actor who was plucked into films by Olivier and then went on to have a considerable career.
Sadly, many of his films such as The Caretaker, the Pinter play in which he also starred on stage are not available on disc or Netflix. He had artistic success but not popular acclaim until later with his appearance in Women in Love where he broke, with Oliver Reed, the ban against full frontal male nudity. Hardly a great accomplishment if he had not also been absolutely wonderful as one of the men in the two women's life.
I think that I saw in Bates a fellow traveler. He was gay all his life and stayed resolutely in the closet. I did not.
We had the honor of sitting with Bates every morning for a week during one of the early Palm Springs Film Festivals watching a group of his films. It was great fun. He was very accessible. We sat in a small theater, he in the first row. He laughed and enjoyed himself as though he had never seen the films before. After the show he answered questions. Very nicely.
The Festival does not do things like that any more. Actors are shoved into parties and awards shows for which the public has to pay lots of money. This cost us nothing except the time and our all shows ticket.
I am not watching all his films. Some that I have seen and are long time favorites. There is one play.
I don't mean this to be exhaustive. Just a gentle reminder of a great man who didn't stay with us all that long.
