Actors - Leonard Rossiter

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	Actors - Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter (born Liverpool, England, October 21st 1926 - died London, October 5th 1984) was a distinguished British actor, most widely known for his comedy roles in two British television series of the 1970s.

Rossiter began acting when he picked up a girlfriend from her amateur dramatics class and was challenged to do better when he criticised her and her fellow performers. He soon gave up his job in insurance to enrol in repertory theatre and turn professional as an actor at the comparatively late age of 27.

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. Through the 1950s and 1960s he established himself as a hugely respected actor in theatre and film. In 1968 he played the supporting role of undertaker Mr Sowerberry in Lionel Bart's Oliver!
and further came to wider public notice when 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 an even larger role, in Barry Lyndon
(1975). He guest-starred memorably in a 1972 episode of the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son as an escaped convict, before winning his two leading roles in sitcoms which made him a household name.

In Rising Damp, on ITV, he played Rigsby, the lecherous landlord of a house converted to a block of 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 enormous critical acclaim, including from his co-stars. During this halcyon period, he was given a surprise tribute on This Is Your Life in 1975.

At the same time he starred alongside Joan Collins as her bumbling suitor in a series of successful and endearing Cinzano commercials, in which somehow the drink would be spilled down the female character's dress.

In the animated adaptation of The Perishers he provided the voice for Boot the dog. He reprised Rigsby for a movie version of Rising Damp in 1980 - meaning he had now played the role on stage, TV and film - and his last TV role was that of the eponymous supermarket manager in Tripper's Day, an ITV sitcom which was not up to the standards of the shows he had previously adorned.

He also played the title role in the short film Le Petomane, and appeared in Water
.

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. He left behind his second wife Gillian (he had previously been married to actress Josephine Tewson) and a daughter Camilla. Rossiter's death came as a surprise as he was very fit - he played squash, football and tennis regularly - and had been given an 'all clear' by his doctor prior to accepting the role in Loot.

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