Harold Pinter was born in London in 1930 and died on Christmas Eve, 2008. He was married to Antonia Fraser. He wrote 29 plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming and Betrayal and 21 screenplays including The Servant, The Go- Between, The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Sleuth, and directed 27 theatre productions, including James Joyce’s Exiles, David Mamet’s Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and many of his own plays including his last, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000. In 2005 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Other awards include the Companion of Honour for services to Literature, the Legion D’Honneur, the Laurence Olivier Award and the Molière d’honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He received honorary degrees from 18 universities.
