Film Focus

After Leonard Rossiter: the Movie, who else is crying out for the biopic treatment?

So, Robert Carlyle might play Leonard Rossiter on the big screen. "He's a fucking genius," he tells the Guardian. "I would love to play him. And, would you believe, I get an email from a guy in London saying they were starting to make a biopic of Leonard Rossiter, so I'm going to see the treatment."

As a fellow Rossiter fan, it's news to fill you with equal parts dread and pleasure. The first because, if you squint hard enough, you can sort of see it already: the big tics, the prosthetic nose, the potential casting of Liz Hurley as Joan Collins.

But it also feels like a vindication. Do a little digging about Rossiter's life story (and consider just how great a talent he was) and he seems ripe for a biopic. Yet there isn't even a proper biography of him - just one photo tribute that came out shortly after his death in 1984. The recently published biography of his Rising Damp castmate, Richard Beckinsale, drives home the impulse.

The last time someone suggested a worthy real-life topic for a film on this blog, he got in a whole heap of trouble. But anyway, that's what I'm asking you for now. Which unclaimed genius, forgotten hero or obscure oddity is just begging for the biopic treatment? And - in case some minted studio bigwig happens to come across this - who'd be perfect casting?

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