Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor. He had a long career in the theatre but achieved his highest profile for his television comedy roles starring as Rupert Rigsby in the ITV series Rising Damp from 1974 to 1978, and Reginald Perrin in the BBC's The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin from 1976 to 1979.

Rossiter was born on 21 October 1926 in Wavertree, Liverpool, the second son of John and Elizabeth (née Howell) Rossiter. The family lived over the barber's shop owned by his father. He was educated at the Liverpool Collegiate School (1939–46). In September 1939, when the Second World War began, Rossiter was an evacuee, along with his schoolmates, and went to Bangor in north Wales, where he stayed for 18 months. 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 May Blitz air raid in 1941. Rossiter then had to support his mother, therefore he could not take up the place he had been offered at the University of Liverpool. Instead, he completed his National Service as a sergeant, initially in the Intelligence Corps, then in the Army Education Corps, spending much of the time in Germany writing letters home for other soldiers. After being demobbed he worked for six years as an insurance clerk in the claims and accident departments of the Commercial Union Insurance Company.