Guy Bates' acting career spanned over more than fifty years with a multitude of Broadway stage and Hollywood film productions. Some of his most memorable roles include Omar Khayyám in the 1914 stage and 1922 film productions of "Omar the Tentmaker" and Louis Napoleon in "Maytime" ( 1937) and again in "The Mad Empress" (1939). His fourth and final marriage was to British character actress Lillian Kemble-Cooper. In this head and shoulders portrait, Bates is seated facing away from the camera, turning his head in the direction of the shot but his gaze is fixed on a distant point past the camera. He wears a quizzical, almost troubled expression that is believable and convincing, a trait constant in his repertoire of expressions accumulated over several decades of character acting.