(Rob Crilly’s article appeared in the Telegraph,7/11.)
Roger Rees, the floppy-haired Tony Award-winning Welsh actor who appeared in the US comedy Cheers and as an aristocratic ambassador in The West Wing, has died at the age of 71.
A representative said he died on Friday night at his home in New York after a short illness.
He most recently appeared in a Broadway production of The Visit but had to give up his part in May to undergo treatment.
Although he will be forever associated with the stage – and in particular the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, for which he won an Olivier Award and a Tony – he achieved greatest fame with a string of television roles in the US, where he lived for 25 years.