Tony Award-winning actor Roger Rees dies at 71 in New York

By MARK KENNEDY
AP Drama Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Roger Rees, the Tony Award-winning Welsh-born actor and director who appeared on TV's "The West Wing" and was a mainstay on Broadway playing Gomez in "The Addams Family" and Chita Rivera's doomed lover in "The Visit," has died. He was 71.

Rees died Friday night at his home, said his representative, Rick Miramontez.

Rees played the snobbish Robin Colcord on television's "Cheers" and the title character in the Royal Shakespeare Company's original production of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," in England and on Broadway. He won a Tony in the title role.

He is survived by his husband Rick Elice, the playwright, whose credits include the "Peter Pan" prequel "Peter and the Starcatcher," which Rees co-directed.

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