Anthony Smith shared a flat with Tom Stoppard in Bristol, when they were both young reporters in the 1960s. When he learned last night that his old friend – who became perhaps the greatest playwright of his age – had died aged 88, he said it was “as though a floor of my house has collapsed”.
Famous for his delight in language, his love of big ideas and his sardonic sense of theatrical fun, Stoppard will be mourned internationally by lovers of the theatre, but also by those who value his commitment to protecting freedom of expression and his ability to use the stage to communicate clashing ideologies in an entertaining way.
Over a six-decade career, Stoppard redefined drama for a generation of admirers and earned Tony and Olivier awards, as well as a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his co-written 1998 screenplay for Shakespeare In Love, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow and Dame Judi Dench.
A statement from United Agents issued this afternoon said the playwright had died “peacefully” at his home in Dorset “surrounded by his family”.
The statement added: “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.”
Over a six-decade career, Stoppard earned Tony and Olivier awards, as well as a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his co-written 1998 screenplay for Shakespeare In Love.
Among his most critically acclaimed and popular stage hits was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the play that made his name in 1966. There followed a long list of successes, including The Real Inspector Hound, Travesties, The Real Thing and Arcadia.
Born Tomáš Sträussler in Czechoslovakia, he fled his home during the Nazi occupation, taking refuge aged nine in Britain where he learned a new language and his remarkable career took off after a favourable review of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in The Observer.
‘He was a man who was thoroughly committed to freedom of expression’
Jemimah Steinfeld, Index on Censorship
The playwright Patrick Marber, who directed his last major play, Leopoldstadt, also paid tribute to his brilliance and expressed his sadness to The Observer, saying “It was my great honour and joy to work with him twice in the last 10 years, on his play Leopoldstadt and before that on Travesties”.
Knighted in 1997 by the late Queen for his services to literature, his great talent has been praised by Mick Jagger, who described him as his “favourite playwright” in a post on social media. “He leaves us with a majestic body of intellectual and amusing work. I will always miss him.”
Stoppard’s admired screenplays include Empire of the Sun and The Russia House. His plays for television and screen adaptations included his own work, Professional Foul, and an acclaimed serialisation of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall.
He was a committed campaigner for human rights and was honoured by PEN America, the literary and human rights organisation, receiving the Mike Nichols Writing for Performance Award for Leopoldstadt, the 2020 West End play with a cast that included his son Ed Stoppard.
The organisation Index on Censorship, originally founded to support Soviet dissidents, was a cause Stoppard supported in Britain. Its chief executive, Jemimah Steinfeld, said: “In his example was a man who was thoroughly committed to freedom of expression and put forward the best argument for why it matters. He will be sorely missed".
Stoppard also wrote for this newspaper, standing in for Clive James on the television review page in the mid-1970s and commenting wryly in 1974: “Before taking up my present employment (I am off now for a 48-week break. Clive James will be filling in) I had barely seen Coronation Street (Granada) or Crossroads (ATV) and had never heard of Emmerdale Farm (Yorkshire), Marked Personal (Thames), Crown Court (Granada) or General Hospital (ATV). Being conscientious to a lunatic degree, I am now slightly familiar with all of them, especially the last four, which go out at a time I had previously thought to be given over to keep-fit programmes in Welsh.”
Just before the Covid pandemic, Stoppard said he feared he had written his last play. That work, Leopoldstadt, staged first at the National Theatre in a run that closed in March 2020, revisited his Jewish roots for the first time on the stage.
The play, which the author said had moved him more than anything else he had written, was a return to his childhood memories long before his eventual move to Britain. It centres on the Jewish quarter of Vienna that gives the play its name, as fascism rises across Europe and threatens the newly found security of its inhabitants.
It was only in the early 1990s that Stoppard had discovered the extent of his Jewish heritage and learned of the death of many relatives in Nazi concentration camps, including his mother’s sisters and all four of his grandparents. After the second world war war, his mother had married her second husband, a British army officer, and moved to England from Singapore to start a new life.
Leopoldstadt enjoyed a second run in London in the late summer of 2021. after Covid restrictions were lifted. Marber, who directed the work at the National Theatre, told The Observer last night of his immense admiration for Stoppard.
“We spent a lot of time together and I have numerous stories to tell of his brilliance, kindness and great wit,” he said. “But tonight with the news of his passing just in, I want to send my love to his immediate family. Rest in peace, Tom.”