Known for Acting
Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series Rising Damp (1974–78), and Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79). He also had a long and distinguished career in the theatre and gained some notoriety for a series of Cinzano commercials (1978–1983), with Joan Collins.
Born
October 21, 1926
Died
October 5, 1984 (age 57)
Birthplace
Wavertree, Liverpool, England, UK
Filmography
48 films, 31 shows


Leonard Rossiter: Comedy Great
2022 · 1h 7m
A celebration of the actor's life and career, featuring contributions from friends, co-stars and fans including Don Warrington, Sue Nicholls and Mark Lester. The programme also includes a never-before-seen interview with Rossiter himself, and brings new perspectives on one of Britain's best-loved actors, from his upbringing in Liverpool to his remarkable, late-blossoming TV career.
The Funny Blokes of British Comedy
The Funny Blokes of British Comedy
2005 · 1h 13m
Movie with some of the greatest brittish comedians such as Rowan Atkinson, John Cleese.


The Unforgettable Leonard Rossiter
2000 · 25m
Tribute to the much-loved character actor.


'Oh, Miss Jones!': The Very Best of Leonard Rossiter
1996 · 52m · UK
A compilation of the many characters played by Leonard Rossiter.


The Moon Over Soho
1985 · 1h 10m · UK
A wily publisher of arts magazines tries to cope with ever-growing financial problems - and also his formidable German mother.


Alice in Wonderland
1985 · 1h 40m
Anglia Television's 5 episode TV miniseries adaption of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was inspired and based upon an early production put on by the famous Da Silva Puppets group at the Norwich Puppet Theatre.


Water
1985 · 1h 38m · UK
The British governor of a tiny island nation in the Caribbean Commonwealth finds his idyllic existence thrown into chaos when an American drilling company finds a huge source of natural mineral water there.


The Life and Death of King John
1984 · 2h 37m · UK
The reign of England's King John is threatened by Philip of France who demands that John's nephew Arthur be placed on the throne. Pragmatic and decisive, King John moves to plactate the French, but there are others who seek disputre his authority.


Dog Ends
1984 · 1h 20m
A middle-aged man is feeling the strain of looking after his elderly grandfather, who is demanding and needs a lot of medical treatment. Then a neighbour suggests a painless way to be rid of him. This black comedy is set in the future, where euthanasia is lawful and increasingly common, but it should still, ideally, be voluntary.


The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
1983 · 1h 47m · UK
46-year-old Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is suffering a midlife crisis and tries to escape his dreary life.


The Funny Side of Christmas
1982 · 1h 20m · UK
Skits from: "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin"; "The Les Dawson Show"; "Yes Minister"; "Only Fools and Horses"; "Three of a Kind"; "Last of the Summer Wine"; "Sorry!"; "Butterflies"; "Smith and Jones"; and "Open All Hours".


Trail of the Pink Panther
1982 · 1h 36m · UK
The Pink Panther diamond is stolen once again from Lugash and the authorities call in Chief Inspector Clouseau from France. His plane disappears en-route. This time, famous French TV reporter Marie Jouvet sets out to solve the mystery and starts to interview everybody connected to Clouseau.


Britannia Hospital
1982 · 1h 56m · UK
Britannia Hospital, an esteemed English institution, is marking its gala anniversary with a visit by the Queen Mother herself. But when investigative reporter Mick Travis arrives to cover the celebration, he finds the hospital under siege by striking workers, ruthless unions, violent demonstrators, racist aristocrats, an African cannibal dictator, and sinister human experiments.


The Factory
1981 · 1h
A factory's workforce is dwindling as divisions between the workers and management widen.


Rising Damp
1980 · 1h 38m · UK
Stingy landlord Rigsby manages to scam his lodgers John, an art student, and Philip, an African medical student, making both pay for a room they must share. However Rigsby's favorite lodger, Miss Jones, flirts with Philip rather than him, despite his pitiful attempts at seduction.


Le Petomane
1979 · 33m · UK
The incredibly true story of the legendary French entertainer Joseph Pujol, who performed impersonations with his self-described 'elastic anus' and a surfeit of wind.
The Waterloo Bridge Handicap
The Waterloo Bridge Handicap
1978 · 21m · UK
A commuter's race to catch a rush-hour train, narrated in the style of a horse race.


Fearless Frank
1978 · 1h 23m
The outrageous – and not entirely reliable – memoirs of Irish writer Frank Harris, sometime cowboy in the Old West, friend to the famous in the literary world, essayist and critic, and seducer of beautiful women.


Voyage of the Damned
1976 · 2h 35m · UK
A luxury liner carries Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany in a desperate fight for survival.


The Pink Panther Strikes Again
1976 · 1h 43m · UK
Charles Dreyfus, who has finally cracked over inspector Clouseau's antics, escapes from a mental institution and launches an elaborate plan to get rid of Clouseau once and for all.


Machinegunner
1976 · 1h 20m · UK
A 'machinegunner' (West Country slang for a debt-collector) turns amateur sleuth, but finds himself in hot water with local criminals.


Barry Lyndon
1975 · 3h 8m · UK
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.


After the Solo
1975 · 1h
"The voice will make its effect. And it will, undoubtedly, be very touching. But, tell me: after his voice has broken, can you make anything of him then?" After the solo, after the chorus, after the applause?
If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them
1974 · 55m · UK
Set in a cemetery, the film tells the story of a young man whom a blind man wrongly imagines to be black, and explores the nature of human prejudice.


Luther
1974 · 1h 50m · US
A 16th-century clergyman's view breaks the Catholic Church apart.
After Loch Lomond
After Loch Lomond
1973 · 1h · UK
Mickey Grant is the life and soul of the many coach trips he has taken. After his latest journey, he meets his travelling companions in a London station buffet and together they recall the journey from Loch Lomond.


The Italian Table
1970 · 1h 15m · UK
A junk dealer is caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between a woman, her husband and his mistress when they sell a piece of their furniture.
The Double Agent
The Double Agent
1969
In London, a traitor is selling information. In Moscow, a Yorkshire cloth salesman is approached by the KGB, who believe he has more to sell than cloth.


Otley
1969 · 1h 31m · UK
A petty crook finds himself mistaken for a murderer and a secret agent.


Diamonds for Breakfast
1968 · 1h 42m · UK
Swinging playboy Grand Duke Nicholas Goduno, a direct descendent of the Romanov family who were overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917, learns that his family's crown jewels will be exhibited at a London museum and plots to steal them. To this end, he gathers a crew of beautiful but dangerous women, led by Bridget Rafferty, to assist in his plot against Popov, the Soviet functionary in charge of the exhibit.


Oliver!
1968 · 2h 33m · UK
Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.


Deadfall
1968 · 2h · UK
Cat burglar Henry Clarke and his accomplices the Moreaus attempt to steal diamonds from the chateau of millionaire Salinas.


The Year of the Sex Olympics
1968 · 1h 45m · UK
Influenced by concerns about overpopulation, the counterculture of the 1960s and the societal effects of television, the play depicts a world of the future where a small elite control the media, keeping the lower classes docile by serving them an endless diet of lowest common denominator programmes and pornography. The play concentrates on an idea the programme controllers have for a new programme which will follow the trials and tribulations of a group of people left to fend for themselves on a remote island. In this respect, the play is often cited as having anticipated the craze for reality television.
The Fanatics
The Fanatics
1968 · 1h 28m · UK
The writer and philosopher Voltaire decides to take action when he hears of a case of a man being tortured after being accused of murdering his son.


2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 · 2h 29m · UK
Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.


The Whisperers
1967 · 1h 45m · UK
Margaret Ross is an impoverished old woman who lives alone in a seedy apartment and enjoys a rich fantasy life as an heiress. One day she discovers stolen money hidden by her son and believes her fantasy has come true.


Drums Along The Avon
1967 · 1h 13m
A liberal white man becomes a Muslim to promote racial harmony.


Deadlier Than the Male
1967 · 1h 41m · UK
British agent Bulldog Drummond is assigned to stop a master criminal who uses beautiful women to do his killings.


The Witches
1966 · 1h 29m · UK
Following a nervous breakdown, Gwen takes up the job of head teacher in the small village of Haddaby. There she can benefit from the tranquillity and peace, enabling her to recover fully. But under the facade of idyllic country life she slowly unearths the frightening reality of village life in which the inhabitants are followers of a menacing satanic cult with the power to inflict indiscriminate evil and death if crossed.
The Devil's Eggshell
The Devil's Eggshell
1966 · 1h 30m · UK
The discovery of mysterious egg-shaped objects at the sites of a series of disasters lead people to believe that we are being attacked by alien beings, but it is revealed to be a conspiracy.


The Wrong Box
1966 · 1h 45m · UK
In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.


Hotel Paradiso
1966 · 1h 38m · UK
Monsieur Feydeau has writer's block and he needs a new play, so he takes an opportunity to observe his upper class neighbors of 1900 Paris. There is Monsieur Boniface with hard domineering wife Angelique; also, Monsieur Cotte with beautiful but neglected wife Marcelle. Henri Cotte traces architectural anomalies (mostly "ghost" sounds in the drain pipes) and plans a night at the Hotel Paradiso, which happens to be the chosen romantic rendezvous spot of Marcelle and Monsieur Boniface. One wife, two husbands, a nephew, and the perky Boniface maid, all at this 'by the hour' hotel and consummation of the affair is, to say the least, severely compromised (not the least by a police raid). All of this is under Feydeau's eye, and his play is the 'success fou' of the next season.


King Rat
1965 · 2h 14m · US
When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, the Allied POWs, mostly British but including a few Americans, were incarcerated in Changi prison. Among the American prisoners is Cpl. King, a wheeler-dealer who has managed to establish a pretty good life for himself in the camp. King soon forms a friendship with an upper-class British officer who is fascinated with King's enthusiastic approach to life.


The Long Ships
1964 · 2h 6m · UK
Moorish ruler El Mansuh is determined to locate a massive bell made of gold known as the "Mother of Voices." Viking explorer Rolfe also becomes intent on finding the mythical treasure, and sails with his crew from Scandinavia to Africa to track it down. Reluctantly working together, El Mansuh and Rolfe, along with their men, embark on a quest for the prized object, but only one leader will be able to claim the bell as his own — if it even exists at all.


A Jolly Bad Fellow
1964 · 1h 34m · UK
An English professor decides that there are too many useless people in the world and invents a gas that will kill them off. But first they'll at least have a good laugh.


Billy Liar
1963 · 1h 38m · UK
A young Englishman dreams of escaping from his working class family and dead-end job as an undertaker's assistant. A number of indiscretions cause him to lie in order to avoid the penalties. His life turns into a mess and he has an opportunity to run away and leave it all behind.


This Sporting Life
1963 · 2h 14m · UK
In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.


A Kind of Loving
1962 · 1h 52m · UK
As Vic Brown vacillates between infatuation and disinterest for his co-worker Ingrid Rothwell, she finds out that she is pregnant and Vic has to reconcile how he thought his life would go with what life actually has in store for him.