Ronald Harwood

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sir

Ronald Harwood

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
OccupationWriter
Years active1960–2015
Spouse
Natasha Riehle
(m. 1959; died 2013)
Children3
RelativesSir Antony Sher (cousin)
President of
PEN International
In office
October 1993 – October 1997
Preceded byGyörgy Konrád
Succeeded byHomero Aridjis

Sir Ronald Harwood

Horwitz; 9 November 1934 – 8 September 2020) was a South African-born British author, playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser (for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(2007).

Early life and career

Harwood was born Ronald Horwitz in Cape Town, in what was then the Union of South Africa, the son of Isobel (née Pepper) and Isaac Horwitz.[1] After attending Sea Point High School,[2] Harwood moved from Cape Town to London in 1951 to pursue a career in the theatre. He changed his surname from Horwitz to Harwood after an English master told him it was too foreign and too Jewish for a stage actor.[3]

After training for the stage at the

Lyric Hammersmith during which time he played the role of Pablo both in the stage debut of Alun Owen's play The Rough and Ready Lot and in its 1959 television adaptation.[4][5]

In 1960, Harwood began a career as a writer and published his first novel, All the Same Shadows in 1961, the screenplay for Private Potter (1962) from his television drama, and the stage play, March Hares in 1964. Harwood continued at a prolific pace penning more than 21 stage plays, and 10 books. He also created more than 16 screen plays, but seldom wrote original material directly for the screen, usually acting as an adapter, sometimes of his own work (The Dresser).

One of the recurring themes in Harwood's work was his fascination with the stage, its performing artists and artisans, as displayed in The Dresser, After the Lions (about

Quartet
(about ageing opera singers), and his non-fiction book All the World's a Stage, a general history of theatre.

Harwood also had a strong interest in the

Nazi occupation of Poland), the play later adapted to film Taking Sides (focused on the post-War "de-Nazification" investigation of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler), the play Collaboration (about the composer Richard Strauss and his partnership with the Jewish writer Stefan Zweig), and the play An English Tragedy (dealing with the British fascist John Amery).[6][7]

Harwood also wrote the screenplay for the films The Browning Version (1994) with Albert Finney, Being Julia (2004) with Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons, and Roman Polanski's version of Oliver Twist (2005) with Ben Kingsley.

He won an

Humanitas Award
in recognition of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Recognition

Harwood was president of the English PEN Club from 1989 to 1993, and of PEN International from 1993 to 1997. He was chairman of the Royal Society of Literature from 2001 to 2004, and was president of the Royal Literary Fund from 2005. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1974, Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1996, and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1999.

In 2003, he was appointed a member at the Department of Language and Literature of the

Central School of Speech and Drama (London, England) in 2007, and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Chichester in 2009. Harwood was knighted in the 2010 Birthday Honours.[9]

National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C1173/02) with Harwood in 2005–2007 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library.[10] The British Library also acquired the papers of Ronald Harwood in 2004 consisting of manuscripts and papers, correspondence, and press cuttings.[11]

He was named chairman of the

Duchess of Rothesay.[12]
He received the National Jewish Theatre Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

In May 2017 an authorized biography of Harwood, Speak Well of Me by W. Sydney Robinson, was published by Oberon Books.

Personal life

He attended the Seapoint Boys' High School in that area of Cape Town. He moved to England in 1951. In 1959, he married Natasha Riehle (1938–2013), a descendant of Russian nobility. They had three children: Antony (born 1960), Deborah (born 1963), and the composer Alexandra Harwood (born 1966).[13]

The actor Sir Antony Sher was his first cousin, once removed.[14] Harwood was the brother of South African dance critic Eve Borland.[15]

Harwood died from natural causes at his home in Sussex on 8 September 2020, at age 85.[16][17]

Bibliography

Stage plays

Screenplays

Books and published works

See also

References

  1. ^ "Ronald Harwood Biography (1934–)". www.filmreference.com.
  2. – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Walker, Tim "In Praise of the Patriotic Playwright" Archived 19 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine, The Spectator, 14 June 2006
  4. ^ Owen, Alun (1960). The Rough and Ready Lot: A play in Three Acts. Cover design by Elisabeth Frink (First ed.). London: Encore Publishing Co. Ltd. p. 4.
  5. ^ "The Rough and Ready Lot", Radio Times, no. 1871, London, p. 19, 18 September 1959, retrieved 6 April 2016
  6. ^ Hemming, Sarah (15 February 2008). "The heart of the matter". Financial Times. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  7. ^ Evening Standard review, 19 February 2008
  8. ^ "Home". Keele University.
  9. ^ "No. 59446". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2010. p. 1.
  10. ^ National Life Stories, 'Harwood, Ronald (5 of 18) An Oral History of Theatre Design', The British Library Board, 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2018
  11. ^ Ronald Harwood Papers, archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 26 may 2020
  12. ^ "HRH The Duchess of Rothesay joins University 'family'". University of Aberdeen.
  13. ^ "Lady Harwood (1938–2013)". Peerage News.
  14. .
  15. ^ "Final curtain for Eve Borland – dancer, teacher, critic." (21 August 2007) The Cape Times, Cape Town
  16. ^ Singh, Anita (8 September 2020). "Sir Ronald Harwood, Oscar-winning screenwriter and playwright, dies at 85". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  17. ^ Rahmad, Abid (8 September 2020). "Ronald Harwood, 'The Pianist' Screenwriter, Dies at 85". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  18. ^ "Stage review of the 2004-5 revival of The Dresser".

Further reading

External links

Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by International President of PEN International
1993–1997
Succeeded by