Harold Pinter

The son of a Jewish tailor, Harold Pinter was born in East London in 1930. He started writing poetry for little magazines in his teens. As a young man, he studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama, but soon left to undertake an acting career under the stage name David Baron. He travelled around Ireland in a Shakespearean company and spent years working in provincial repertory before deciding to turn his attention to playwriting.

Pinter started writing plays in 1957. He had mentioned an idea for a play to a friend who worked in the drama department at Bristol University. The friend liked the idea so much that he wrote to Pinter asking for the play. The only problem was that if the university was to perform the play, they would need a script within the week. Pinter wrote back and told his friend to forget the whole thing--then sat down and wrote the play in four days. The product of his labors, a one-act entitled The Room, contained many of the elements that would characterize Pinter's later works--namely a commonplace situation gradually invested with menace and mystery through the deliberate omission of an explanation or motivation for the action. Later this same year, Pinter would develop his style still further in another one-act, The Dumb Waiter, about two hired killers employed by a mysterious organization to murder an unknown victim. In this second play, Pinter added an element of comedy, provided mostly through the brilliant small-talk behind which the two men hide their growing anxiety. Their discussion over whether it is more proper to say "light the kettle" or "light the gas" is wildly comic and terrifying in its absurdity. The Dumb Waiter was first performed at the Hampstead Theatre Club in London in 1960.

Although written after The Dumb Waiter, Pinter's first full-length play (The Birthday Party) was produced two years earlier in 1958 at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. The play centers around Stanley, an apathetic man in his thirties who has found refuge in a dingy seaside boarding house which has apparently had no other visitors for years. But when Goldberg and McCann (characters reminiscent of the hired assassins in The Dumb Waiter) arrive, it soon becomes clear that they are after Stanley. Like Samuel Beckett, Pinter refuses to provide rational explanations for the actions of his characters. Are the two men emissaries of some secret organization Stanley has betrayed? Are they male nurses sent to bring him back to an asylum he has escaped from? The question is never answered. Instead, the two men organize a birthday party for a terrified Stanley who insists that it is not his birthday.

Pinter has gone on to write a number of absurdist masterpieces including The Caretaker, The Homecoming, Betrayal, Old Times, and Ashes to Ashes. He has also composed a number of radio plays and several volumes of poetry. His screenplays include The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Last Tycoon, and The Handmaid's Tale. He has received numerous awards including the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear, BAFTA awards, the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize, the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or and the Commonwealth Award. His sparse style and gift for creating tension and horror through the most economic of means has made him one of the most respected playwrights of our day. He is married to Lady Antonia Fraser.

Source: http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc28.html

Playwright
THE ROOM (1957); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1957); THE DUMB WAITER (1957); A SLIGHT ACHE (1958); THE HOTHOUSE (1958); THE CARETAKER (1959); SKETCHES: The Black and White; Trouble in the Works; Last to Go; Request Stop; Special Offer; That's Your Trouble; That's All; Interview; Applicant; Dialogure Three (1959); A NIGHT OUT (1959); NIGHT SCHOOL (1960); THE DWARFS (1960); THE COLLECTION (1961); THE LOVER (1962); TEA PARTY (1964); THE HOMECOMING (1964); THE BASEMENT (1966); LANDSCAPE (1967); SILENCE (1968); SKETCH Night (1969); OLD TIMES (1970); MONOLOGUE (1972); NO MAN'S LAND (1974); BETRAYAL (1978); FAMILY VOICES (1980); and with VICTORIA STATION and A KIND OF ALASKA under the title OTHER PLACES (1982); SKETCH Precisely (1983); ONE FOR THE ROAD (1984); MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1988); THE NEW WORLD ORDER (1991); PARTY TIME (1991); MOONLIGHT (1993); ASHES TO ASHES (1996); CELEBRATION (1999); SKETCH Press Conference (2002)

Screenwriter
THE CARETAKER (1962); THE PUMPKIN EATER (1963); THE SERVANT (1963); THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1965); ACCIDENT (1966); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1967); THE GO-BETWEEN (1969); THE HOMECOMING (1969); LANGRISHE GO DOWN (1970) adapted for TV 1978; A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU (1972) not filmed; THE LAST TYCOON(1974); THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (1980); BETRAYAL (1981); VICTORY (1982) not filmed; TURTLE DIARY (1984); THE HANDMAID'S TALE (1987); REUNION (1988); THE HEAT OF THE DAY (1988); THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS (1989); THE TRIAL (1989); THE DREAMING CHILD (1997) not filmed; THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR (2000) not filmed.

Director

Plays
THE COLLECTION (with Peter Hall) (1962); THE LOVER and THE DWARFS (1963); THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (1964); James Joyce's EXILES (1970); Simon Gray's BUTLEY (1971); John Hopkin's NEXT OF KIN (1974); Robert Shaw's THE MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH London (1967) and New York (1968); Simon Gray's OTHERWISE ENGAGED London (1975) and New York (1977); William Archibald's THE INNOCENTS New York (1976); Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT (1976); Simon Gray's THE REAR COLUMN (1978); Simon Gray's CLOSE OF PLAY (1979); THE HOTHOUSE (1980); Simon Gray's QUARTERMAINE'S TERMS (1981); Robert East's INCIDENT AT TULSE HILL (1981); Jean Giraudoux's THE TROJAN WAR WILL NOT TAKE PLACE (1983); Simon Gray's THE COMMON PURSUIT (1984); ONE FOR THE ROAD (1984); Tennessee Williams' SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1985); Donald Freed's CIRCE AND BRAVO (1986); Jane Stanton Hitchcock's VANILLA (1990); PARTY TIME and MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1991); THE NEW WORLD ORDER (1991); David Mamet's OLEANNA (1993); LANDSCAPE (1994); Ronald Harwood's TAKING SIDES (1995); Reginald Rose's TWELVE ANGRY MEN (1996); ASHES TO ASHES 1996; Simon Gray's LIFE SUPPORT 1997; ASHES TO ASHES in Italy (1997); ASHES TO ASHES in France (1998); Simon Gray's THE LATE MIDDLE CLASSES (1999); CELEBRATION and THE ROOM (2000); NO MAN'S LAND (2001).

Films
BUTLEY (1974)

Television
Simon Gray's THE REAR COLUMN (1980); THE HOTHOUSE (1982); MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE (1988); PARTY TIME (1992); LANDSCAPE (1995); ASHES TO ASHES Italy (1998).

Actor

Theatre
Toured Ireland with Anew McMaster repertory company (1951-52) Donald Wolfit Company, King's Theatre, Hammersmith (1953-54) Rep at Chesterfield, Whitby, Huddersfield, Colchester, Bournemouth, Torquay, Birmingham, Palmers Green, Worthing, Richmond (1953-59) THE CARETAKER - Mick Duchess Theatre (1960) THE HOMECOMING - Lenny Watford Theatre (1969) OLD TIMES - Deeley Los Angeles (1985) NO MAN'S LAND - Hirst Almeida & Comedy Theatre (1992-3) THE HOTHOUSE - Roote Chichester Festival Theatre, Comedy Theatre (1995) LOOK EUROPE! - Tramp, Almeida Theatre (1997) THE COLLECTION - Harry, Gate Theatre, Dublin (1997) & Donmar Warehouse (1998), ONE FOR THE ROAD - Nicolas, New Ambassadors Theatre, London (2001) & Lincoln Center Festival, New York, USA (2001), SKETCH Press Conference, Royal National Theatre (2002)

Film
THE SERVANT - Society Man (1964) ACCIDENT - Bell (1967) THE RISE AND RISE OF MICHAEL RIMMER - Steven Hench (1970) TURTLE DIARY - Man in Bookshop (1985) MOJO - Sam Ross (1997) MANSFIELD PARK - Sir Thomas (1998) THE TAILOR OF PANAMA - Uncle Benny (2000)

Television
A NIGHT OUT - Seeley (1960) HUIS CLOS by Jean Paul Sartre - Garcia (1965) THE BASEMENT - Stott (1967) ROGUE MALE by Clive Donner - Lawyer (1976) LANGRISHE, GO DOWN - Shannon (1978) THE BIRTHDAY PARTY - Goldberg (1987) BREAKING THE CODE by Hugh Whitemore - John Smith (1997) CATASTROPHE by Samuel Beckett - Director (2000) WIT by Margaret Edson - Father (2000)

Radio
PLAYERS - Narrated by Harold Pinter with Edward de Souza FOCUS ON FOOTBALL POOLS and FOCUS ON LIBRARIES (1951) HENRY VIII - Abergevenny (1951) MR PUNCH PASSES - Narrator (1951) A NIGHT OUT - Seeley (1960) THE EXAMINATION - Reading (1962) TEA PARTY - Reading (1964) MONOLOGUE - Man (1975) ROUGH FOR RADIO by Samuel Beckett - Man (1976) BETRAYAL - Robert (1990) THE PROUST SCREENPLAY - The voice of the Screenplay (1995) I HAD TO GO SICK by Julian McLaren Ross - Reading (1998) MOONLIGHT - Andy (2000) A SLIGHT ACHE - Edward (2000)

Awards
CBE; Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg); European Prize for Literature (Vienna); Pirandello Prize (Palermo); The David Cohen British Literature Prize; Honorary degrees from the Universities of Reading; Birmingham; Glasgow; East Anglia; Stirling, Hull; Brown (Rhode Island); Sussex; Bristol; East London; Sofia (Bulgaria); Goldmiths, University of London and University of Aristotle, Thessaloniki. He is an honorary fellow of Queen Mary College, London. He has also been awarded the Laurence Olivier Special Award, and in May 1997 he received a Moli?re d'Honneur in Paris in recognition of his life's work. Also in 1997 he received the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence and a BAFTA Fellowship. In 1998 he was made a Companion of Literature by the RSL. In 2000 he was awarded The Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts; The Brianza Poetry Prize, Italy 2000; South Bank Show Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts, 2001; The S.T. Dupont Golden Pen Award 2001 for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature; The 'Premio Fiesole ai Maestri del Cinema', Italy, 2001; The laurea ad honorem from the University of Florence, Italy, 2001.
World Leaders Award, Toronto, Canada, 2001
The Hermann Kesten Medallion for outstanding commitment on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers, awarded by German P.E.N., Berlin, Germany, 2001; Companion of Honour for services to Literature, 2002.
Honoris Causa Degree, University of Turin, Italy, 2002

Source: http://www.haroldpinter.org/biography/index.shtml