Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Born: October 10, 1930
Died: December 24, 2008
in Hackney, London, England, UK
Harold Pinter CH CBE (10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993), and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works.

Pinter was born and raised in Hackney, east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School. He was a sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school plays and writing poetry. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but did not complete the course. He was fined for refusing national service as a conscientious objector. Subsequently, he continued training at the Central School of Speech and Drama and worked in repertory theatre in Ireland and England. In 1956 he married actress Vivien Merchant and had a son, Daniel, born in 1958. He left Merchant in 1975 and married author Lady Antonia Fraser in 1980.

Pinter's career as a playwright began with a production of The Room in 1957. His second play, The Birthday Party, closed after eight performances, but was enthusiastically reviewed by critic Harold Hobson. His early works were described by critics as "comedy of menace". Later plays such as No Man's Land (1975) and Betrayal (1978) became known as "memory plays". He appeared as an actor in productions of his own work on radio and film. He also undertook a number of roles in works by other writers. He directed nearly 50 productions for stage, theatre and screen. Pinter received over 50 awards, prizes, and other honours, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005 and the French Légion d'honneur in 2007.

Despite frail health after being diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in December 2001, Pinter continued to act on stage and screen, last performing the title role of Samuel Beckett's one-act monologue Krapp's Last Tape, for the 50th anniversary season of the Royal Court Theatre, in October 2006. He died from liver cancer on 24 December 2008.

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Movies for Harold Pinter...

Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story
Title: Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: June 2, 2023
Type: Movie
The first ever feature documentary about one of the most talented, accomplished and multi-faceted artists of the 20th Century. An exploration of Coward’s expansive career which features credits across the stage and screen, including Brief Encounter, Blithe Spirit, and Private Lives.
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Harold Pinter:  A Celebration
Title: Harold Pinter: A Celebration
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: January 24, 2010
Type: Movie
In June 2009, a group Britain's leading actors gathered for one night only to perform a celebration of the work of Harold Pinter at the National Theatre, directed by Ian Rickson. The team who made the acclaimed Harold Pinter documentaries for BBC's Arena was there to record this unique performance.
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Sleuth
Title: Sleuth
Character: Man on T.V.
Released: October 12, 2007
Type: Movie
On his sprawling country estate, an aging writer matches wits with the struggling actor who has stolen his wife's heart.
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Krapp's Last Tape
Title: Krapp's Last Tape
Character: Krapp
Released: June 20, 2007
Type: Movie
A 69 year old man sits alone on his last birthday and listens to the past. KRAPPS LAST TAPE is an extraordinary study of mortality, creativity and memory.
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Art, Truth and Politics
Title: Art, Truth and Politics
Character: self
Released: March 1, 2006
Type: Movie
Nobel Lecture delivered on video by the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature Harold Pinter (1930–2008), who was at the time hospitalised and unable to travel to Stockholm to deliver it in person.
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Title: The Culture Show
Character: Self
Released: November 11, 2004
Type: TV
A weekly BBC Two magazine programme focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture and more.
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Catastrophe
Title: Catastrophe
Character: The Director
Released: September 1, 2001
Type: Movie
An autocratic Director (Harold Pinter) and his Assistant (Rebecca Pidgeon) put the final touches to the last scene of some kind of dramatic presentation, which consists entirely of a man (John Gielgud) standing still onstage.
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One for the Road
Title: One for the Road
Character: Nicolas
Released: July 5, 2001
Type: Movie
2001 theatre production of Harold Pinter's one-act play considered his "statement about the human rights abuses of totalitarian governments."
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The Tailor of Panama
Title: The Tailor of Panama
Character: Uncle Benny
Released: March 30, 2001
Type: Movie
A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.
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Wit
Title: Wit
Character: Mr. Bearing
Released: February 9, 2001
Type: Movie
A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
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Mansfield Park
Title: Mansfield Park
Character: Sir Thomas Bertram
Released: November 12, 1999
Type: Movie
When spirited young woman, Fanny Price is sent away to live on the great country estate of her rich cousins, she's meant to learn the ways of proper society. But while Fanny learns 'their' ways, she also enlightens them with a wit and sparkle all her own.
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Against the War
Title: Against the War
Character: himself
Released: May 5, 1999
Type: Movie
Documentary arguing against the NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo
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Mojo
Title: Mojo
Character: Sam Ross
Released: September 2, 1997
Type: Movie
The sexual rivalries over a new, potentially great rock'n'roll singer between a nightclub owner and a local gangster cause unrest and eventually lead to murder.
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Michael Redgrave: My Father
Title: Michael Redgrave: My Father
Character: Self
Released: July 13, 1997
Type: Movie
Corin Redgrave presents a portrait of his father, Michael Redgrave, exploring his personality, nature and what he was like as a father. He uses family photographs and letters and his father's diaries and autobiography, and produces a picture of a complicated and troubled man who was bisexual, a heavy drinker and emotionally distant and cold as a father. Includes contributions from Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, as well as Harold Pinter and Diana Menuhin. Also contains clips from several of Michael Redgrave's films.
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Breaking the Code
Title: Breaking the Code
Character: John Smith
Released: September 17, 1996
Type: Movie
A biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who was one of the inventors of the digital computer and one of the key figures in the breaking of the Enigma code, used by the Germans to send secret orders to their U-boats in World War II. Turing was also a homosexual in Britain at a time when this was illegal, besides being a security risk.
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The Birthday Party
Title: The Birthday Party
Character: Nat Goldberg
Released: June 21, 1987
Type: Movie
It is Stanley's birthday, but the party he is given is not quite what he expects. [A BBC production broadcast on the Theatre Night series.]
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Turtle Diary
Title: Turtle Diary
Character: Man in Bookshop
Released: December 6, 1985
Type: Movie
Two separate people, a man and a woman, find something very stirring about the sea turtles in their tank at the London Zoo. They meet and form an odd, but sympathetic camaraderie as they plan to steal two of the turtles and free them into the ocean.
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Poets Against the Bomb
Title: Poets Against the Bomb
Released: November 25, 1981
Type: Movie
An event organised by CND pits the bomb against poetry. Hear artists who hoped that words and rhymes could put an end to destructive times.
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The South Bank Show: The French Lieutenant's Woman
Title: The South Bank Show: The French Lieutenant's Woman
Character: Interviewee
Released: January 1, 1981
Type: Movie
1981 episode of London Weekend Television's The South Bank Show examines the film and features interviews with novelist John Fowles, screenwriter Harold Pinter, and director Karel Reisz
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Langrishe, Go Down
Title: Langrishe, Go Down
Character: Barry Shannon
Released: September 20, 1978
Type: Movie
In the late 1930s, three reclusive middle-aged spinster sisters live on their run down family estate in Ireland. Otto Beck, a perpetual graduate student from Bavaria with a habit of making pompous declamations, rents the back lodge to work on his esoteric thesis. Imogen Langrishe, the least repressed of the sisters, begins an affair with Otto. Imogen takes the love affair seriously, but Otto just enjoys the cheap lodging and the comfort of Imogen.
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Title: The South Bank Show
Character: Self
Released: January 14, 1978
Type: TV
The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show that was produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.
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Rogue Male
Title: Rogue Male
Character: Saul Abrahams
Released: September 22, 1976
Type: Movie
In 1939, Sir Robert Thorndyke takes aim at Adolf Hitler with a high powered rifle, but the shot misses its mark. Captured and tortured by the Gestapo and left for dead, Sir Robert makes his way back to England where he discovers the Gestapo has followed him. Knowing that his government would turn him over to German authorities, Sir Robert goes underground in his battle with his pursuers.
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Monologue
Title: Monologue
Released: April 13, 1973
Type: Movie
A man sits alone remembering his love affair with the girl his best friend won.
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The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
Title: The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
Character: Steven Hench
Released: November 12, 1970
Type: Movie
Fresh-faced young Michael Rimmer worms his way into an opinion poll company and is soon running the place. He uses this as a springboard to get into politics and in the mini-skirted flared-trousered world of 1970 Britain starts to rise through the Tory ranks.
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Last to Go
Title: Last to Go
Released: January 1, 1969
Type: Movie
The last of five animated shorts directed by Gerald Potterton for Pinter People, voiced by Harold Pinter and Donald Pleasence.
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The Basement
Title: The Basement
Character: Stott
Released: February 20, 1967
Type: Movie
An uneasy friendship between an introspective loner and a more gregarious man is renewed when the latter turns up at the former's basement flat one rainy night accompanied by an enigmatic, beautiful, mostly silent, girlfriend.
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Accident
Title: Accident
Character: Bell - TV Producer
Released: February 9, 1967
Type: Movie
Stephen is a professor at Oxford University who is caught in a rut and feels trapped by his life in both academia and marriage. One of his students, William, is engaged to the beautiful Anna, and Stephen becomes enamored of the younger woman. These three people become linked together by a horrible car crash, with flashbacks providing details into the lives of each person and their connection to the others in this brooding English drama.
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In Camera
Title: In Camera
Character: Garcin
Released: November 4, 1964
Type: Movie
A 1964 BBC adaptation of Sartre's "No Exit."
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The Caretaker
Title: The Caretaker
Character: Man
Released: January 21, 1964
Type: Movie
Aston, a quiet, reserved man, lives alone in a top-floor cluttered room of a small abandoned house in a poor London district. He befriends and takes in Mac Davies, an old derelict who has been fired from a menial job in a café. In time Aston offers him a job as caretaker of the house. Aston's brother, Mick - a taunting, quasi-sadist - harasses the derelict when his brother is away, countermanding his orders...
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The Servant
Title: The Servant
Character: People in Restaurant: Society Man
Released: November 14, 1963
Type: Movie
Hugo Barrett is a servant in the Chelsea home of indolent aristocrat Tony. All seems to go well until the playboy’s girlfriend Susan takes a dislike to the efficient employee. Then Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister Vera as a live-in maid, and matters take another turn for the worse…
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A Night Out
Title: A Night Out
Character: Seeley
Released: April 24, 1960
Type: Movie
Against the wishes of his domineering mother, Albert Stokes attends a work party. But the evening is not the escape he was hoping for.
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Title: Tony Awards
Character: Self - Nominee
Released: April 1, 1956
Type: TV
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre.
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Title: NBC Experiment in Television
Character: Self/Various voices
Released: December 31, 1969
Type: TV
An attempt by NBC to emulate the success of the CBS hit The Twilight Zone, this hour-long anthology series showcased different actors, stories and creative talent each week.