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Roger Rees was born on 5 May 1944 in Aberystwyth, Wales. His father was a carpenter and a policeman, his mother worked in shops. He has a brother called Andrew. |
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He lived in Wales until he was 9, then the family moved to South London, where his father worked in Battersea as a policeman. Roger went to Balham County Secondary Modern then on to Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, then to the Slade School of Fine Arts. To pay his way he worked at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, at the Simpsons-in-the-Strand restaurant, and on the Victoria Line underneath Oxford Circus as a chain-man. |
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While at the Camberwell School of Arts In London he joined the Boy Scouts in order to be able to take part in the Gang Shows. He worked with some of the old music-hall stars and met celebrities like Marlene Dietrich. |
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His father died when he was 21 and he left the Slade school to become the family breadwinner. He started painting scenery at Wolverhampton and for various other theatre companies. He ended up as a scene painter at Wimbledon Theatre where, in 1965, Arthur Lane, one of the last actor-managers asked him to appear in a play, Hindle Wakes. He played more parts that first season, Dennis in "Murder at the Vicarage" and Wilkins and Peter Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol", and then auditioned for the RSC. He was turned down because his voice wasn't good enough. He stayed in rep for a while, and was accepted by the RSC on his fourth attempt in 1967. He then appeared in a great number of small roles in Shakespeare plays as well as more modern pieces. Starting as an attendant in "As You Like It", and playing similar parts in other Shakespeare productions, moving on to Fenton in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and Patchbreech in "Pericles", and then to Gratiano in "The Merchant of Venice", Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing", Roderigo in "Othello". He also appeared in productions of modern plays like "The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising" by Gunther Grass, and "The Island of the Mighty" by John Arden. |
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After about 5 years with the RSC Roger joined the Cambridge Theatre Company, where he appeared in the panto "Jack and the Beanstalk", as well as in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Brecht's "Fears and Miseries of the Third Reich" and Ionesco's "Aunt Sally". |
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Back with the RSC in 1974 he had his first taste of Broadway when "London Assurance" was performed there. He then moved on to bigger roles with the RSC, like Benvolio to Ian McKellen's Romeo, and Antipholus of Syracuse in Trevor Nunn's musical adaptation of "The Comedy of Errors". |
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He was part of a small RSC company that toured Britain in 1978, visiting places as far afield as Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Poole, Horsham, Canterbury, Exmouth, Glastonbury and Peterborough. The company consisted of, amongst others Edward Petherbridge, Bob Peck, Clyde Pollitt, Griffith Jones, Patrick Godfrey, Suzanne Bertish, Emily Richard, Rose Hill and Susan Tracy. The company was led by Ian McKellen. They performed three productions, "Twelfth Night", "Three Sisters" and "Is There Honey Still for Tea?". That last one was described as "an anthology of words and music about England", and was compiled by Roger. It contained extracts from sources as diverse as Noel Coward and captain Scott's diary. Back in Stratford he played Posthumus in "Cymbeline" and Semyon in "The Suicide". |
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In 1978 he returned briefly to his roots and created a series of drawings to illustrate fellow-actor Michael Pennington's book on a train journey through Siberia entitled "Rossya". Though Roger did not travel with Pennington, he did recreate the Russian world through characters and landscapes. |
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Financial difficulties forced the RSC to take just one production to London in 1980, and the company stages a new version of Dickens' novel "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" This proves to be Roger's big break. The production appears to have dominated his life for a few years as it moved to Broadway and was made into a television series. Rees won both an Olivier and a Tony award for his performance, and the play is mentioned in every article on and interview with him since then. |
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 Roger in New York at the time of Nicholas Nickleby.  |
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He has his first work in television around this time, working with friend Judi Dench on "Saigon: Year of the Cat", and appearing in one of the episodes of Roald Dahl's "Tales of the Unexpected". |
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 Roger in "Tales of the Unexpected": Reconciliation with Meg Davies
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Roger's next big theatre role was in the West End where he originates the role of Henry in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing". A few years later he took on Kerner in Stoppard's "Hapgood". Around this time he also starred in his first American film, Bob Fosse's "Star 80". He then played Hamlet and Berowne in "Love's Labour's Lost" for the RSC. In 1986 he appeared in the thriller "Double Double", a play he had written together with Eric Elice. |
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The following years, the late eighties and early nineties, see him appear increasingly in film and television productions. He portrays millionair Robin Colcord in "Cheers", makes guest appearances on "The Young Riders" and "My So-Called Life", and played leading roles in "Mantis" (John Stonebrake) and "Boston Common" (Harrison Cross). Most notable film roles were Augustus Steranko in "If Looks Could Kill" (1991), Parnell in "Stop! Or My Mum Will Shoot", opposite Sylvester Stallone, Mervin, Sherriff of Rottingham in Mel Brooks' "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" (1993) and Peter Quince in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999). In 1989 he became an American citizen. |
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Back on stage in New York Roger won an Obie award in 1992 for his portrayal of Graydon Massey in John Robin Baitz' play "The End of the Day". Roger returned to Broadway in 1993 to play Lermontov in "The Red Shoes" but he left the production before it opened. His next appearance was more succesful. He appeared as George in Cocteau's "Indiscretions" with Kathleen Turner, Eileen Atkins, Jude Law, Cynthia Nixon. His performance won him both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award nomination. In 1996 he appeared with fellow Nickleby actor David Threlfall in "The Rehearsal" at the Roundabout Theatre. Next on Broadway came Moliere's "Le Misanthrope", in which he played Alceste opposite Uma Thurman's Jennifer. In 2000 he appeared with Derek Jacobi in a production of "Uncle Vanya" at the Atkinson. |
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During these years Roger also worked extensively as a director. In the mid-eighties he already was co-artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic for two years. Later, for example, at San Diego's Globe Festival he directed "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in 1999, and "Love's Labour's Lost" in 2000. He directed Shaw's "Arms and the Man" at the Roundabout in 2000 just before appearing in "Uncle Vanya". At the Williamstown Theatre Festival he directed "The Rivals" (1998), and he both directed and starred in a production of "The Taming of the Shrew" opposite Bebe Neuwirth. |
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He held the Hoffman Chair as Professor of Drama at Florida State University in 1988, and lectured on acting at UCLA. He has also contributed to a number of books on the acting of Shakespeare. |
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His voice can be heard reading numerous audio books, and he has contributed to cartoon series, like Gargoyles, and radio drama. He appeared as Sherlock Holmes in a BBC dramatization of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" in 1988, and played Lord Windermere in an L.A. Theatre Works production of "Lady Windermere's Fan" in 2000. |
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His most recent television roles were guest appearances on NBC's "The West Wing" and "Three Sisters". His most recent stage appearances were as John Adams in the musical "1776", part of the Reprise series in Los Angeles, and as Alfie Byrne in "A Man of No Importance" in New York. |
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Three films featuring Roger have recently been released. One is "The Emperor's Club", starring Kevin Kline and Rob Morrow, based on the Ethan Canin story. "Frida", based on the life of Frida Kahlo with Salma Hayek, in which Roger plays Guillermo Kahlo, Frida's father is the second. And there is "The Scorpion King". |
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In November 2004 Roger was appointed artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusets. |
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 Roger with Peter Gallagher and James Naughton at a reception in New York in January 2002. |
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 At a special screening of Black Hawk Down at the Beekman Theatre in January 2003
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Roger as Sherlock Holmes 