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Roger Rees: 1944-2015
Roger Rees, the Tony Award-winning actor with appearances on television programs Cheers and The West Wing, died last night (10 June). His husband, playwright Rick Elice, and family and friends were at his side at his New York City home. The Welsh-born actor was 71. According to a release from O&M Co. the cause was cancer.
Rees’ career started at the Royal Shakespeare Company and he attended the Slade School of Fine Arts. In 1976, he played Malcolm in Trevor Nunn’s stage production of Macbeth. Two years later, he reprised the role for television.
He took the title role in the original production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, David Edgar’s stage adaptation of the Dickens novel. His performance won him the Olivier and Tony Awards for best actor in 1982.
In 1984, he starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in the television movie The Ebony Tower. From 1988 to 1991 he starred in the sitcom Singles, with co-star Judy Loe. From 1989 to 1991 and in 1993, he appeared on the award winning series Cheers. Later television appearances include substitute teacher Mr. Racine on My So-Called Life, British Ambassador Lord John Marbury on The West Wing, and James MacPherson on Warehouse 13.
Reese was also a presence on the big screen. In 1983 he co-starred with Mariel Hemingway in Star 80. He played the Sheriff of Rottingham in Mel Brooks’ film Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Later film appearances include Frida (2002) and The Prestige (2006).
According to a 2012 profile in The New Yorker, Elice saw Rees in the Broadway production of Nickleby. Describing his future husband as ‘devastatingly beautiful,’ the playwright sent him a letter to invite him to a benefit. Rees did not reply. A year later, after a dress reseal for Cats, the two met again.
‘Standing before me was a six-foot-four, extraordinarily handsome American in a Burberry raincoat,’ Rees recalled to the magazine in 2012. ‘It was the raincoat that did it.’
There was a date, and that led to a long-distance relationship. Rees relocated to New York City in 1995, and the pair lived together. In 2011, two months after same-sex marriage became legal in New York, they married.
Nunn described the actor, in a statement, as ‘inspirational. He had the perpetual boyishness and mischief of a Peter Pan, extraordinary wit combined with a gift for self-satire, and dauntless optimism coupled with deep-rooted belief.’
According to NPR, Sir Patrick Stewart tweeted the following:
Brilliant actor, dear friend and colleague, witty, kind, private man, Roger Rees died this morning. A space is left that cannot be filled.
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) July 11, 2015
A private funeral service will be held next week; details of a memorial will be forthcoming.
The post Roger Rees: 1944-2015 appeared first on Gay Star News.
James Withers
www.gaystarnews.com/article/roger-rees-1944-2015/
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