Sir Ronald Harwood, CBE, FRSL (born Ronald Horwitz; 9 November 1934
â€" 8 September 2020) was a South African-born British author,
playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his plays for the British
stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser (for which he was
nominated for an Oscar) and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was nominated for the
Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(2007).Harwood was born Ronald Horwitz in Cape Town, in what was then
the Union of South Africa, the son of Isobel (née Pepper) and Isaac
Horwitz. After attending Sea Point High School, Harwood moved from
Cape Town to London in 1951 to pursue a career in the theatre. He
changed his surname from Horwitz to Harwood after an English master
told him it was too foreign and too Jewish for a stage actor.After
training for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he joined
the Shakespeare Company of Sir Donald Wolfit. From 1953 to 1958,
Harwood was Sir Donald's personal dresser. He would later draw on this
experience when he wrote the stage play, The Dresser, and the
biography, Sir Donald Wolfit CBE: His life and work in the
Unfashionable Theatre. In 1959, after leaving the Donald Wolfit
Company, he joined the 59 Theatre Company for a season at the Lyric
Hammersmith during which time he played the role of Pablo both in the
stage debut of Alun Owen's play The Rough and Ready Lot and in its
1959 television adaptation.
â€" 8 September 2020) was a South African-born British author,
playwright, and screenwriter, best known for his plays for the British
stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser (for which he was
nominated for an Oscar) and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was nominated for the
Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(2007).Harwood was born Ronald Horwitz in Cape Town, in what was then
the Union of South Africa, the son of Isobel (née Pepper) and Isaac
Horwitz. After attending Sea Point High School, Harwood moved from
Cape Town to London in 1951 to pursue a career in the theatre. He
changed his surname from Horwitz to Harwood after an English master
told him it was too foreign and too Jewish for a stage actor.After
training for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he joined
the Shakespeare Company of Sir Donald Wolfit. From 1953 to 1958,
Harwood was Sir Donald's personal dresser. He would later draw on this
experience when he wrote the stage play, The Dresser, and the
biography, Sir Donald Wolfit CBE: His life and work in the
Unfashionable Theatre. In 1959, after leaving the Donald Wolfit
Company, he joined the 59 Theatre Company for a season at the Lyric
Hammersmith during which time he played the role of Pablo both in the
stage debut of Alun Owen's play The Rough and Ready Lot and in its
1959 television adaptation.
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