Editing Leonard Rossiter (section)

==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.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shoard |first1=Catherine |title='It was hard not to stare at him all the time': inside the remarkable rise and shocking loss of Leonard Rossiter |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/oct/04/leonard-rossiter-rising-damp-fall-and-rise-of-reginald-perrin?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb |access-date=5 October 2024 |agency=The Guardian |publisher=Guardian Media Group |date=4 October 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241005085904/https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/oct/04/leonard-rossiter-rising-damp-fall-and-rise-of-reginald-perrin |archive-date=5 October 2024 |location=Manchester}}</ref><ref name=telegraphreview>{{cite web| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8188742/Leonard-Rossiter-Character-Driven-review.html| title=Leonard Rossiter, Character Driven: review| access-date=29 December 2014}}</ref> The family lived over the barber's shop owned by his father. He was educated at the [[Liverpool Collegiate School]] (1939–46).<ref>R. Tanitch ''Leonard Rossiter'' p. 149</ref> In September 1939, when the [[Second World War]] began, Rossiter was an evacuee, along with his schoolmates, and went to [[Bangor, Gwynedd|Bangor]] in north Wales, where he stayed for 18 months.<ref>{{cite web|last=Coslett|first=Paul|title=Leonard Rossiter|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/12/27/local_history_leonard_rossiter_feature.shtml|publisher=BBC|access-date=28 January 2021}}</ref> 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 [[Liverpool Blitz#May blitz|May Blitz]] [[strategic bombing|air raid]] in 1941.<ref>{{cite web|date=7 May 2013|title=Mums and babies among victims of Liverpool's Mill Road Hospital raids during May Blitz|url=https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/nostalgia/mums-babies-among-victims-liverpools-3373898|newspaper=Liverpool Echo|access-date=28 January 2021}}</ref> Rossiter then had to support his mother, therefore he could not take up the place he had been offered at the [[University of Liverpool]].<ref>''Leonard Rossiter'' by Robert Tanitch; {{ISBN|0-947728-19-8}}</ref> Instead, he completed his [[National Service]] as a sergeant, initially in the [[Intelligence Corps (United Kingdom)|Intelligence Corps]], then in the [[Royal Army Educational Corps|Army Education Corps]], spending much of the time in Germany writing letters home for other soldiers.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The joke that led Leonard Rossiter to stardom...and Rigsby|last=Knight|first=Val|quote=I was in just before the end of the Japanese war. The war in Germany was over, clearly why I went to Germany at that time...to teach soldiers, most of whom had missed schooling during the war, to read and write. It was weird really. I was immediately made a sergeant. Well you had to have some sort of rank because as a private in the classroom, teaching old soldiers their A, B, C, you'd soon have been given the brush off. I spent most of the time writing their letters home, you know 'Dear Mum...'|date=1 April 1978|newspaper=[[TVTimes]]}}</ref> After being [[demobbed]] he worked for six years as an insurance clerk in the claims and accident departments of the [[Commercial Union|Commercial Union Insurance Company]].<ref>Interview on BBC R4 Desert Island Discs 12 April 1980</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Rossiter revels in Rising Damp|quote=Having Rossiter in the part, incidentally, is all down to a former girlfriend who is called Ida. She was in an amateur group and when the young Rossiter watched her at rehearsals, he told her he thought he could do better. 'I suppose you could do better!' she snapped. 'I couldn't do worse,' he said. So he joined the group.|date=7 November 1975|newspaper=[[TVTimes]]}}</ref> 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".<ref>Tanitch, p. 8</ref> He gave up his insurance job to enrol in [[Preston, Lancashire|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.<ref>{{cite news|title=Change of Policy|quote=Twenty-seven year-old Leonard Rossiter, Reginald Salberg's latest 'find' at Preston, was an insurance inspector in Liverpool until about three months ago. For years before he nursed an ambition to become an actor, and it was only the stress of domestic circumstances that baulked earlier efforts to reach his goal. Last August his family responsibilities were considerably relieved and he sought an interview with Mr. Salberg. As it happened, the application that got him his first small part (in 'The Gay Dog') was most opportunely timed. If it had been made a week before, or a week later, he would probably be still carrying out duties as an insurance claims assessor...|date=18 November 1954|newspaper=[[The Stage]]}}</ref>

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. 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."<ref>Tanitch, p. 25</ref>

In 1957–58, he played in the musical ''[[Free as Air]]'' and then toured in [[Eugene O'Neill]]'s ''[[The Iceman Cometh]]''. He joined the [[Bristol Old Vic]] and was there for two years, from 1959 to 1961, a time he described as "the bedrock of his career", followed by other stage work, in, among other plays, ''The Strange Case of Martin Richter'', ''Disabled'', ''The Heretic'', ''[[The Caretaker (play)|The Caretaker]]'' and ''[[Semi-Detached (play)|Semi-Detached]]'' (in New York). His performance in the premiere of [[Michael Blakemore]]'s stage production of [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s ''[[The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui]]'' in 1969 met with critical acclaim.<ref>Tanitch, p. 47</ref>