Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was a British actor. He had a long career in the theatre but achieved his highest profile for his television comedy roles starring as Rupert Rigsby in the ITV series Rising Damp from 1974 to 1978, and Reginald Perrin in the BBC's The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin from 1976 to 1979. Early life and stage work Rossiter was born on 21 October 1926 in Wavertree, Liverpool, the second son of John and Elizabeth (née Howell) Rossiter. The family lived over the barber's shop owned by his father. He was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate School (1939–46). In September 1939, when the Second World War began, Rossiter was evacuated, along with his schoolmates, to Bangor in north Wales, where he stayed for 18 months. While at school, his ambition was to go to university to read modern languages and become a teacher; however, his father, who served as a voluntary ambulanceman during the war, was killed in the May Blitz air raid in 1941. Rossiter then had to support his mother, therefore he could not take up the place he had been offered at the University of Liverpool. Instead, he completed his National Service as a sergeant, initially in the Intelligence Corps, then in the Army Education Corps, spending much of the time in Germany writing letters home for other soldiers. After being demobbed he worked for six years as an insurance clerk in the claims and accident departments of the Commercial Union Insurance Company. Rossiter started acting after his actress girlfriend challenged him to try it, after he had scoffed at the performances of the amateur group she was in. He joined the Wavertree Community Centre Drama Group and made his first appearance with the Adastra Players in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path. The local critic said that he "was particularly outstanding, his one fault being a tendency to speak too fast on one or two occasions". He gave up his insurance job to enrol in Preston repertory theatre and became a professional actor at the age of 27. He made his professional stage debut in Joseph Colton's The Gay Dog in Preston on 6 September 1954. He later became assistant stage manager there, and then went on to Wolverhampton and Salisbury repertory companies. 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.