Playwright Harold Pinter Dead At 78
Posted December 25, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Playwright Harold Pinter has died. He was 78 years old.
Pinter passed away Wednesday after a long battle with throat cancer, his wife Antonia Fraser said Thursday.
The British author made an indelible mark on the stage beginning with his second play, ‘The Birthday Party,’ in 1957. (His first play, ‘The Room,’ was allegedly written because a friend of Pinter’s needed something to direct to fulfill a course requirement.)
He wrote dozens of plays over the years that followed, eventually turning to those with overt political themes such as ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes.’
His prolific and pointed contributions netted him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.
There’s a word for his style of drama and it’s in the dictionary: Pinteresque: having disjointed dialogue.
He is survived by his son Daniel from his first marriage to Vivien Merchant.
Pinter makes a rare appearance to discuss his life and career as part of Orange Word Screenwriters Programme at the British Library on February 9, 2004 in London. Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images.
