Alan Bates
From Muppet Wiki
Alan Bates (1934-2003) was a British actor who played the storyteller in the TV movie Arabian Nights, with digital dragons by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He also played the butler Jennings in Gosford Park, for which the Creature Shop supplied additional digital rendering.
Active in film and television since the 1950s, Bates received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in the 1968 film The Fixer. His other credits ranged from starring roles in the French/Italian comedy The King of Hearts, Georgy Girl (with James Mason and Lynn Redgrave), and Butley, to key supporting roles in Mel Gibson's Hamlet (as Claudius) and Hollywood thrillers The Mothman Prophecies and The Smum of All Fears. In television, he starred in the comedic mystery mini-series Oliver's Travels and played Bounderby in an adaptation of Bleak House.
