Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard Passes Away At 88
Image Source: Vogue
Sir Tom Stoppard, one of the great writers for the stage and screen, has passed away at the age of 88. The news was announced by his agent, who said, "He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit, and his profound love of the English language. It was an honour to work with Tom and to know him."
Tom Stoppard was born to Jewish parents, Martha Becková and Eugen Sträussler in Czechoslovakia in 1937. When he was just two years old, the family were forced to flee due to the Nazi invasion. Their destination, Singapore, was then attacked by the Japanese, so the family moved again, this time to the UK. Stoppard’s father, a doctor remained behind in Asia to help with the war effort and unfortunately died as a Japanese POW. That wasn’t the only loss that the family suffered during World War Two. Both sets of Stoppard’s grandparents were among the many who passed in concentration camps.
Stoppard started his career writing short radio plays in the 1950s. Despite having Peter O’Toole as a cricket buddy, his first few plays didn’t get any attention. That was until in 1966, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966 and overnight he was the next big thing. The quirky take on Hamlet won a Tony Award (the first of five) in 1968. Tom Stoppard hated to preach to his audience, taking an absurdist approach to the human condition in plays like The Real Thing and Coast of Utopia.
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Sir Tom Stoppard had written a few television movies (mostly adaptations of his plays), but in 1985 he landed his first major motion picture, Brazil. The dystopian black comedy was directed by ex-Monty Python member Terry Gilliam. Stoppard was one of three writers working on the script (Gilliam, Charles McKeown), which went on to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the Academy. But more than that, Brazil achieved a cult movie status among moviegoers.
Not content with that success, Stoppard’s next attempt at a big picture was Steven Spielburg’s Empire of the Sun. The one who walked home with six Oscar nominations. But he didn’t get the win until 1999, when the Bard proved lucky for him yet again. Shakespeare in Love cleared the board with seven wins, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. By this time, Stoppard was held in such high regard in Hollywood that he was brought in to do a final pass on high-profile scripts such as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (dialogue) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
His last project, Leopoldstadt, was debuted in 2020 and won his fifth Tony in 2023. It was centred around a Jewish family fleeing the pogroms, and touchingly, audience members were given a memorial candle as they left the theatre.
In 1997, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature and King Charles fittingly also gave a tribute to his passing in the media.
"We send our most heartfelt sympathy to his beloved family. Let us all take comfort in his immortal line: 'Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else."
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