British playwright Tom Stoppard has died at the age of 88 in southwest England, his agency, United Agents, announced. Awarded for his acclaimed plays and screenplays for cult films, he leaves behind a substantial body of work, ranging from theatrical daring to Hollywood success.
A career between stages and screens
Little known to the general public, Tom Stoppard nevertheless left a lasting mark on English-language theatre and international cinema. Born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family who had fled the Nazis, he settled in England after the war. He began his career as a journalist before achieving success in the 1960s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an absurdist play that subverts Hamlet. Adapted for the screen in 1990, starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth, this sole directorial effort by Stoppard won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
On the big screen, he wrote several notable screenplays: Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun, and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina. He also contributed to the screenplays of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Star Wars: Episode III, according to AFP. In 1998, his work was recognized in Hollywood when he received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Shakespeare in Love.
A writer acclaimed until the end
Stoppard never stopped writing for the theater. He wrote more than thirty plays throughout his career, exploring themes as diverse as philosophy, totalitarianism, and Jewish memory. His last work, Leopoldstadt, which recounts the story of a Viennese Jewish family whose lives are turned upside down by the rise of Nazism, is one of his most personal. This play won four Tony Awards in 2023, including Best Play.
United Agents, the agency that announced his death, praised a body of work marked by "his wit, generosity, and profound love of the English language." Mick Jagger himself paid tribute to him on the X network, calling him his "favorite playwright" and mentioning "a majestic body of intellectual and entertaining works."
Awarded Tony Awards throughout his career (for Travesties, The Real Thing, and The Coast of Utopia), Tom Stoppard established himself as a major figure in contemporary theatre, blending erudition, humor, and a light touch. Committed to supporting Soviet dissidents in the 1970s, he transformed the stage into a space for reflection and resistance. To the very end, he championed the idea that one can address the most serious subjects without sacrificing a sense of lightness.
