Leonard Rossiter was a frequent
face on television when I was a boy. The trump cushion in The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin was one of the highlights of
the show and he outshone the other three actors as the lecherous landlord in Rising Damp. Here I am outside The Lyric
Theatre in Soho where he died suddenly aged 57. I'm sure most actors wouldn't
mind expiring a feet away from a stage where all the seminal music hall stars had
performed.
I can still remember his early death in 1984 as
he was the lecherous loser landlord Rigsby in Rising Damp which I watched repeatedly (it's still funny today.) Away
from the stage he was played a few sports (he used to take his milkman on a
family holiday so that he could have a squash partner.) Perhaps his
professionalism and need for perfection contributed to the heart attack as he
was a man determined to reach the top. He was born at the bottom, though -
shoved out into the world above his family’s barber shop in the rough end of
Watertree in Liverpool. When he was 15 his dad who was working as a volunteer
ambulance was killed in an Blitz air-raid. After military service he got a job
as an insurance clerk to bring in some money.
Interested in acting from an early age his big
break came when he played an escaped convict in an episode of Steptoe and Son in 1972. The writer Eric
Chappell was so impressed by Leonard's single performance that he cast him in
his stage show The Banana Box. This
transferred to television as Rising Damp
an Leonard’s name was cast in concrete. His version of a loser, seedy,
lecherous landlord was watched by up to 18 million people a week.
This was a driven man who needed to succeed in
everything he did, even when playing sport with members of his own family or in
charity cricket matches. He had to win and by a long lead. I saw him
interviewed on television a few times and always seemed restless and tetchy. He
was married twice and had a daughter. They must have been as shocked as the
rest of us when on Friday 5th October 1984 the end came. He was
appearing in Loot and fifteen minutes
into the performance he missed his cue to go on stage. Someone rushed to his
dressing room but found the door locked. Something was wrong. The stage curtain
was lowered. The locked door was forced open to reveal a motionless Leonard
slumped in an armchair. Still alive an ambulance rushed him to Middlesex Hospital
but it was all too late and he was pronounced dead. Before his death he’d
complained of mild chest pains but a hospital check-up found no ailments so he
carried on playing squash as usual. A post mortem revealed he’d
died of a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart which deems it
less able to pump blood effectively. Symptoms include an irregular heartbeat,
shortness of breath, fainting or sudden death. It sounds like Leonard had worn
himself out.
I took a few photos of the theatre which still
uses water to operate its iron curtain. Years ago most theatres received pumped
water from the river Thames to hydraulically lift heavy goods. I went around the
back and took another photo of a few windows. Perhaps one was on the room where
Leonard died. I doubt it but I saluted them anyway and left.
The rear of the theatre...