Tom Stoppard, a playful, provocative dramatist who won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Shakespeare in 1998, passed away. He was 88.
United Agents claimed Stoppard passed away “peacefully” at his Dorset, southern England, home surrounded by his family in a statement released on Saturday.
He will be remembered for his writing, for example, humanity, brilliance, irreverence, generosity of spirit, and profound love of English, according to the authors. Working with Tom and getting to know him was an honor.
Few dramatists of the 20th century could match Stoppard’s scope and continued success in the world of comic invention and linguistic pyrotechnics.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, his first film, was released in 1966, and his 1993 film, Arcadia, his sequel, Leopoldstadt, has kept theatergoers amused and intrigued by his unique style of acting.
His writing had a distinctive style that earned him the name Stoppardian, frequently philosophical or scientific, but it was always funny. It refers to using verbal gymnastics to discuss philosophical ideas.
In a 1970s interview, the Czech-born Stoppard said, “I want to show that I can make serious points by flinging a custard pie around the stage for a few hours.”
Theatre is primarily a recreation, according to the statement. However, it can also be a place for people who like to stretch their minds.
early years
On July 3, 1937, Stoppard, the son of Eugen Straussler, a doctor, and Marta (or Martha), nee Beckova, a nurse, was born in what was then Czechoslovakia.
When he was a baby, the Jewish family fled the Nazis and settled in Singapore.
However, his mother and his older brother Peter escaped to India with him because Singapore became unsafe there. After Singapore fell to the Japanese, his father perished while he remained there.
The family relocated to England after Marta Straussler wed Kenneth Stoppard, a major in the British army.
Pocklington in northern England, where Stoppard was born, became a boarder before dropping out of school at the age of 17.
He made the decision to avoid school. Instead, he immediately began reporting for a small newspaper in Bristol, western England.
He started working as a theater and cinema critic, and his passion for drama persisted.
a successful career
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a tragicomedy centered on two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which was immediately a hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Before earning a Tony Award for best play in the United States, it moved to London’s West End.
“What’s it about”? Bemused theatergoers reacted frequently to the play frequently. According to Stoppard, who was questioned when he was speaking to a woman outside a Broadway theater, “It’s about to make me very wealthy.”
Hermione Lee wrote in Hermione Lee’s authorised biography, but he undoubtedly had managed to transform his previously fragile finances. He later questioned whether he had said “very.”
In fact, Stoppard’s work would go on to win numerous awards both domestically and internationally.
He received the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards’ 1997 knighthood, and in 2014 he was named “the greatest living playwright.”
He is best remembered for his movies, which include the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, to non-theatre-goers.
He won an Oscar for his screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, which won seven Academy Awards that year overall.
The director of the Broadway premiere of Stoppard’s marriage and affairs story, The Real Thing, said, “He has no apparent animus toward anyone or anything.”
