RONALD HARWOOD

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Ronald Harwood

He was born to a Jewish family in Cape Town in  South Africa in 1934. He came to London in 1951, and after finishing the studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; he joined the “Shakespeare Company” of Sir Donald Wolfit, one of the last great actor-managers in the British theatre in the fifties. Moreover, from 1953 to 1958, Harwood was Sir Donald's personal dresser. On basis of these experiences, he would later write the famous drama “The Dresser” and a biography  of Sir Donald Wolfit, “His life and work in the Unfashionable Theatre”.

In 1960, Ronald Harwood started a new career as a writer and a playwright and was quite prolific, penning novels and plays. One of the recurring themes in Harwood's work is his fascination for the stage. The plays like “The Dresser”, “After the Lions” (about Sarah Bernhardt), “Taking Sides” (on investigation of Wilhelm Furtwängler, the chief conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra), “Quartet” (about ageing opera singers), and his non-fiction book “All the World's a Stage”, a general history of theatre, all speak of his permanent and obsessive attachment to the “the call of the footlights”. 
Having become world famous as the playwright, and next to the Nobel winner, Pinter, the most famous British contemporary dramatist, Harwood turned to script writing. Especially notable is his cooperation with the famous director Roman Polanski, for whom he wrote two scripts for the films “The Pianist” (Academy Award for the best revised script) and Oliver Twist. Ronald Harwood’s dramas are presently played in over twenty countries of the world, and the drama “Quartet” in six world languages. Next to being active as the writer, Harwood was also active as the President of International PEN Center (1993-1997). Since this year, Ronald Harwood has become a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts.

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