Harold Pinter

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British writer, a playwright, screenwriter and poet, one of the best-known dramatists of the 1960s. Pinter’s works were complex, challenging and noted for their use of understatement. He won numerous awards for the enigmatic "The Homecoming," 1965, including a Tony and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. Pinter, the son of a Jewish tailor, grew up in a working class neighborhood on London’s East End. Taken out of the city during the start of World War II, he returned to his hometown when he was 14. He acted in school plays while he attended Hackney Downs Grammar School and went on to receive a grant to study at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He was unhappy with his studies there and after only two years, he left and joined a repertory company. Strongly anti-war, he refused to do his national military service, and in 1949, he went before the magistrate who luckily gave him a fine rather than a prison sentence. Pinter stated that, if called to serve again in the future, he would still refuse to report. In 1950, using the name "Harold Pinta," he published his first poems. From 1951-52, he traveled throughout Ireland and England with several acting companies, and until 1959, he played regional theatres under the name "David Baron." His first full-length play, "The Birthday Party," 1958, was initially rejected by London audiences but later was revived to great success. His second full-length play, "The Caretaker," 1960, established his reputation as a playwright. Two of his later works, "No Man’s Land," 1975, and "Betrayal," 1978, were quite successful as well. In 1978, he published "Poems and Prose 1941-1977." He married Vivien Merchant, an actress who frequently appeared in his plays; they divorced in 1981. He remarried the biographer Lady Antonia Fraser. He had one child. Pinter was selected for the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature as an author "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms." The announcement from the Swedish Academy on October 13, 2005 described Pinter as the "foremost representative of British drama in the second half of the 20th century." Pinter was unable to attend the awards ceremony because of ill health. He had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus in 2001. He died of cancer on December 25, 2008 in London, age 78. Link to Wikipedia biography