Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor known for his role as Rupert Rigsby in the British comedy television series Rising Damp and as the eponymous Reginald Perrin.
Rossiter was born in Liverpool. He 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 - apparently similar to his real-life personality. Through the 1950s and 1960s he established himself as a hugely 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) and The Avengers ('Dressed to Kill', 1963). In 1968 he played the supporting role of undertaker Mr Sowerberry in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical 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 was to work with Kubrick again, in Barry Lyndon seven years later). Continuing the science fiction theme, in the same year as 2001, he appeared in the prescient BBC TV play The Year of the Sex Olympics by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale.
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. He returned to the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son for the 1972 episode 'The Desperate Hours' 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 period, he was given a surprise tribute on This Is Your Life in 1975.
DVD of first series of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin starring Leonard Rossiter
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 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 had referred to Collins as "The Prop".
In 1976 he starred in an HTV TV thriller with comedic elements - Machinegunner, in which he played a private detective (given the eponymous nickname because of his relentless knocking) drawn into a conspiracy after accepting an apparently straightforward divorce investigation.
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 continued to make a steady stream of cinema appearances, including a role in Lindsay Anderson's dark parable Britannia Hospital (1982).
Rossiter 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 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 and including a definitive guide and a history of sarcasm.
He played the title roles in the BBC Shakespeare production of King John and also in the short film Le Pétomane, the stage name of Josef Pujols who, due to an unusual accident he suffered in youth, was able to take in and expel an almost limitless amount of gas through his anus, an ability he exploited to become for several years the main attraction at the Moulin Rouge. Rossiter's last film appearance was in Water.
Death
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. His affair with broadcaster Sue MacGregor was not revealed until long afterwards. 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.
Selected Filmography
Year
Title
Role
1968
2001: A Space Odyssey
Andrei Smyslov
1974 to 1980
Rising Damp
Rigsby
1975
Barry Lyndon
Capt Quin
1976 to 1979
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Reginald Perrin
1978
The Losers
Sydney Foskett
1982
Britannia Hospital
Vincent Potter
1984
Tripper's Day
Norman Tripper
External links
Leonard Rossiter at the Internet Movie Database
LeonardRossiter.com: Authorised Web Site
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Rossiter"
Categories: 1926 births | 1984 deaths | People from Liverpool | British actors | British television actors
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