Otherwise Engaged: The Life of Alan Bates

About this book

In 1956 at the age of 22 Alan Bates was cast in John Osbornes controversial play Look Back in Anger. The play changed the course of British theatre -- and of Alans life. With a sudden rush of fame he became a member of a new circle of actors at the Royal Court: the English Stage Company. He also worked steadily in major films from A Kind of Loving and Zorba the Greek to Women in Love - and he won international acclaim for his performance as Guy Burgess in the television adaptation of An Englishman Abroad. During his career he appeared in more than 80 plays 45 films and 32 television dramas including major works by Simon Gray Harold Pinter and Alan Bennett. Donald Spoto chronicles his achievements as a performer against the backdrop of a complicated personal life. Alans friends family and fellow actors provide rich poignant and often astonishing anecdotes. His twenty-year marriage to the clever but disturbed Victoria Ward an unconventional union which resulted in shared child-rearing but separate homes and lives provides a contrast to his hitherto hidden sometimes passionate and often tortured liaisons with other women and with men. Despite this he and Victoria never divorced and family was very important to Bates. In 1990 tragedy struck when at 19 his son Tristan died under mysterious circumstances. Not long after Victoria also died leaving Tristans twin Benedick and Alan suddenly alone a shadow of the family they had been. Drawing on dozens of interviews with Alan Batess family his lovers colleagues and friends -- and mining a rich store of primary research -- this exclusively authorised biography paints a portrait of a complex and remarkable personality.