Fans and friends pay tribute to Tony award-winning actor known for roles in The West Wing, Cheers and What You Will

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Roger Rees, the actor best known for his roles in Cheers and The West Wing, has died aged 71.

The Tony award-winner passed away on Friday after a brief illness, his representative Rick Miramontez said.

Fans and friends have paid tribute to the Welsh-born actor on social media. The actor and director Samuel West said he “woke to the sad news of Roger Rees’s death” and posted pictures of Rees in high-profile stage roles.

Samuel West (@exitthelemming) Woke to the sad news of Roger Rees's death. Here he is w/ Michael Williams in Trevor Nunn's 1976 RSC Comedy of Errors pic.twitter.com/yFoHaLSnS8

The choreographer Matthew Bourne wrote: “RIP Roger Rees - a lovely, generous & kind man & an heroic & passionate actor. We all fell in love with him in #NicholasNickleby. So sad.”

Rees won Tony and Olivier awards in 1982 for his lead role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Life And Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roger Rees in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

The musician Rick Wakeman tweeted: “Very sad to learn of the passing of Roger Rees. I saw him last year at a Water Rats Lodge. A truly lovely man and very talented too.”

Actor and writer Cary Elwes, who starred with Reese in the 1993 comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights, said: “So sad about the passing of RogerRees. A beautiful human being and an incredible talent. My condolences to his family”.

Rees had lived in the US for more than 25 years. He is survived by his husband, the playwright Rick Elice.

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He had appeared in the Broadway musical The Visit until a few weeks ago, when his ill-health forced him to withdraw.

Rees was an artist before turning to acting in the 1960s.

In a 2013 interview he said: “I was at a pretty rough school, and the only thing I was good at was art. I got out of this school and went to Camberwell College of Arts, a terribly prestigious thing to do. I was there to be a painter. And I sketched so well that a year later I was sent to Slade School of Fine Art, one of the great art schools.”

He changed focus when he was asked to fill a part in a play at Wimbledon Theatre, where he was painting a backdrop. “And I suddenly was an actor. I played the lead. I don’t remember being nervous. I learned to be nervous later.”



Rees was familiar to television audiences as Robin Colcord, a millionaire love interest for Kirstie Alley’s Rebecca Howe in the 1980s sitcom Cheers, and more recently as British ambassador Lord John Marbury in US political drama the West Wing from 2000 to 2005.

