One of Britain’s leading playwrights, Sir Ronald Harwood, has died aged 85.
The author of more than 20 plays, he also wrote novels and screenplays, earning an Oscar in 2003 for his script for Roman Polanski’s fim set in the Warsaw Ghetto, The Pianist.
His later work explored antisemitism and the Holocaust, in plays such as Taking Sides, about the denazification of the German composer Wilhelm Furtwangler, and Collaboration, about the partnership between the composer Richard Strauss and the Jewish writer Stefan Zweig.
But his best-known play is The Dresser, which was later turned into a film, about a personal assistant to an actor, which drew on his own experiences years earlier.
