Merseyside Mirth Makers - Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter was born on 21 October 1926 in Cretan Road, Wavertree, Liverpool, the second son of Elizabeth (née Howell) and John Rossiter who, following attendance at Granby Street County Primary School, Toxteth, was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate from 1939 to 1946 where he was a member of the school's drama society.. His father, a volunteer ambulance driver. was killed in an air raid which put paid to any thoughts of his ambition of going to university and he had to turn down the offer of a place at Liverpool University. He was a talented - and fiercely competitive - sportsman who loved cricket (playing for Lancashire Colts), tennis and football (scoring 11 goals in a schoolboy match once ) and had a lifelong affection for Everton FC with Tommy Lawton being his idol.

After being demobbed from National service, where he was a sergeant in the Intelligence Corps and the Army Education Corps, he worked as an insurance clerk for six years for the Commercial Union Insurance Company in Liverpool where one of his office colleagues was the late actor Michael Williams, husband of Dame Judi Dench. He also joined the Wavertree Community Centre Drama Group in which he received good reviews before eventually giving up his job to join the Preston Repertory Theatre where he became a professional actor at the age of 27. The reason he gave for quitting his job was "because he did not want to be bored out of his mind".
In his first 19 months in the business he played some 75 roles. He said later: "There was no time to discuss the finer points of interpretation. You studied the part, you did it and then you studied the next part. I developed a frightening capacity for learning lines. The plays became like Elastoplast, which you just stuck on and then tore off. It was the perfect preparation for rehearsing situation comedy on television at the rate of one episode a week."
He soon established himself as a respected actor in films and television as well as on stage with his first major television role being Detective-Inspector Bamber in the long-running police television series Z-Cars. He brought an eccentricity and energy to his performances that worked across all mediums, whether as a brilliant tramp in Harold Pinter's 'The Caretaker' or as a funeral director in the 1963 film 'Billy Liar'. His career in film was varied - he worked with directors as diverse as John Schlesinger, Bryan Forbes, Blake Edwards and Stanley Kubrick - and he was also a master of theatre.
In 1964 he was seen in a supporting role in the Steptoe and Son episode 'The Lead Man Cometh', in which he played the type of character he was by now often getting cast as, namely, 'shady criminal types in raincoats', and in which it was said he brought out the best in Harry H Corbett in this episode as he had to battle with Leonard for supremacy.

Rupert Rigsby

It was in 1973 when Leonard, by now one of the country's most in-demand actors, starred in Eric Chappell's play 'The Banana Box, which was about a miserly landlord called Rooksby who, unashamedly bigoted and racist, finds himself landlord to a black man, and an African prince to boot. The play had success written all over it and Yorkshire Television were keen to turn it into a series.
So, as 1974 came to a close, a new situation comedy hit the screens entitled 'Rising Damp' which followed the same storyline as the play and was written by the play's author Eric Chappell. Leonard was now a massive star and, despite never wanting to do a series, agreed to three more series of Rising Damp, securing the programme as ITV's biggest ever hit, and one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.
The BBC were eager for Leonard to do a show of their own and had already accepted the novel 'The Death Of Reginald Perrin' by David Nobbs as potential for a series. In it Leonard played the frustrated, middle-aged sales executive the way only Leonard could - powerfully and brilliantly, thus 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin quickly followed on his success with 'Rising Damp' into the realms of 'classic comedy'. Two more series followed, all three wonderfully written and staggeringly performed.

The Cinzano Advert

His teaming-up with Joan Collins in the clasic 'Cinzano' commercials will also be remembered for ever as masterpieces of 30-second comedies and remain a testament to Rossiter's talent for timing.

His busy career came to a tragically premature end on October 5th 1984, just sixteen days short of his 58th birthday. During a performance of Joe Orton's play "Loot", Leonard suffered a heart attack in his dressing room.

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