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Harold Pinter


Image Source: http://www.worldleadersfestival.com/leaders/pinter/portrait.html

Biography

Playwright

Screenwriter

Director

Actor


Biography

Harold Pinter is one of the most acclaimed contemporary British playwrights, noted particularly for his early body of work. He was born in the working-class neighborhood of East London's Hackney (an ironic name for such an original writer) in 1930, the son of a Jewish tailor. He evacuated to Cornwall, England, at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, and returned to London when he was 14. He began acting in plays at his grammar school, and later received a grant to study at London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He left the school after two years, and spent most of the 1950s writing his published poetry (under the name Harold Pinter) and acting in small theater productions (often under the pseudonym David Baron). In 1957, he wrote his first play in four days, The Room, a sign of the prolific output to come. His first produced playˇXThe Birthday Party came a year later. The reception was unfavorableˇXit closed within a weekˇXbut Pinter's next full-length play, The Caretaker (1960), won more accolades.

The Dumb Waiter, also staged in 1960, helped cement Pinter's status as a major theatrical figure. He frequently directed, and sometimes acted in, his growing body of work in the 1960s and 1970s, while disseminating his work into radio, television, and film. After 1978's Betrayal, Pinter did not write another full-length play until 1994, but he continued writing shorter plays and adapting the work of others for the stage and screen. A conscientious objector of war when he was eighteen (for which he was fined by the Royal Academy), Pinter was motivated to be more politicalˇXboth in his works and in his public life. He was particularly distressed by the dictatorial coup that overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973. He has since become an outspoken advocate of human rights, and has criticized the Gulf War bombings and other military actions. His actions are not without controversy or contradictionˇXhe attacked the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999, and in 2001 joined The International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian president arrested by the United Nations for crimes against humanity.

Pinter's plays generally take place in a single, prison-like room. His works, which blend comedy and drama, often focus on jealousy, betrayal, and sexual politics, but it is his dialogueˇXand the lack of dialogueˇXfor which he is known. Pinter's language, usually lower-class vernacular, has been described as poetic. His compressed, rhythmic lines rely heavily on subtext and hint at darker meanings. Just as important, however, are the silences in his plays. Pinter has spoken much on the subject, and has categorized speech as that which attempts to cover the nakedness of silence. His most obvious forbear is Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, who took silences to a new level, and other playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd (a French dramatic movement in the 1950s), but whereas Beckett's silences hint at alienation, boredom, and the slow approach to death, Pinter's are ominous and violent. The true natures and motivations of his characters emerge in their silences.

Despite Pinter's relative decrease in creative output, academic attention on Pinter remains as heavy as ever. The Harold Pinter Society was founded in 1991. It publishes The Pinter Review and organizes conferences.

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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)

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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.

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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).

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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

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

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