For the rugby league footballer of the 1970s for Great Britain, and Dewsbury, see Alan Bates For the politician from Oregon, see Alan Bates

Sir Alan Arthur Bates, CBE (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was a British actor of stage, screen and television.

Early life

Bates was born in Allestree, Derby, England on 17 February 1934, the eldest of three sons of Florence Mary (née Wheatcroft), a homemaker and a pianist, and Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance broker and a cellist. The family briefly moved to Mickleover, then returned to Allestree. 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 on Beckett Street. 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.