Natural around Derbyshire, England, Bates earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he exposed prior to allowing to join a Royal Air Force. Within 1956, he debuted on stage in the West End, starring in Look Back in Anger, the role which processed him a star. 4 years late, he appeared in The Entertainer, his first film role. He before long starred around Whistle Down the Wind, and in the Bernard Malamud film The Fixer, which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

He was married to the actress, Victoria Ward, from 1970 until her death inside 1992; they experienced ii sons, a actor Benedick Bates and the late Tristan Bates, world health organization died of an bronchial asthma.

Bates starred inside such international hit films when Georgy Girl, Far From the Madding Crowd, Zorba the Greek, An Unmarried Woman and Women in Love, but he consciously decided to concentrate in two or three easily-chiseled roles, like than to choose all about that come his way. In television, his area ranged from either classic roles like The Mayor of Casterbridge (1978) to Guy Burgess in An Englishman Abroad (1983) to the storyteller in the 2000 version of the Arabian Nights.

Bates was processed the Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1996, and was knighted inside 2003. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2003 at the age of 69.