
Harold Pinter
Writer · 1930 – 2008 · 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Harold Pinter, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Movies21
Movie6.0DramaThrillerA 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.
The Tailor of Panama
2001 · 568 votes
Movie7.6DramaAn indolent aristocrat gets more than he bargained for when he hires a competent but silently devious manservant.
The Servant
1963 · 383 votes
Movie6.7RomanceDramaFanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford.
Mansfield Park
1999 · 347 votes
Movie6.3DramaMysteryLocked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.
Sleuth
2007 · 602 votes
Movie6.4RomanceDramaStephen 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.
Accident
1967 · 120 votes
Movie7.3DramaTV MovieA renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Wit
2001 · 133 votes
Movie4.7DramaCrimeThe 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.
Mojo
1997 · 6 votes
Movie10.0DocumentaryFollows the "Beckett on Film" project, which produced film adaptations of writer Samuel Beckett's nineteen stage plays. The documentary features excerpts from the "Beckett on Film" versions of "Not I", "Krapp's Last Tape", "Endgame", "What Where", and "Waiting for Godot".
Check the Gate: Putting Beckett on Film
2003 · 1 votes
Movie6.4An 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.
Catastrophe
2001 · 10 votes
Movie6.0ComedyDramaFresh-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.
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
1970 · 18 votes
Movie6.4DocumentaryHistoryThe extraordinary life of playwright, singer, actor, composer, and director Noël Coward, who rose from poverty to stardom while keeping his sexuality a secret. Featuring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Frank Sinatra, Michael Caine and Lucille Ball. Narrated by Alan Cumming. With Rupert Everett as the voice of Noël Coward. Directed by Academy Award Nominee Barnaby Thompson.
Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story
2023 · 8 votes
Movie5.6HistoryDramaA 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.
Breaking the Code
1996 · 19 votes
Movie6.5DramaWarIn 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.
Rogue Male
1976 · 23 votes
Movie8.0TV MovieDramaIn 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.
Harold Pinter: A Celebration
2010 · 1 votes
Movie7.4DramaAston, 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...
The Caretaker
1964 · 14 votes
Movie6.3DramaComedyTwo 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.
Turtle Diary
1985 · 15 votes
Movie4.4DramaRomanceIn 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.
Langrishe, Go Down
1978 · 7 votes
Movie6.8TV MovieDramaIt 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.]
The Birthday Party
1987 · 5 votes
Movie5.6DramaTV MovieA 1964 BBC adaptation of Sartre's "No Exit."
In Camera
1964 · 5 votes
- MovieDocumentary
A unique look into the creative process of playwright Harold Pinter, featuring unprecedented access to him rehearsing scenes with actors, giving masterclasses, and being interviewed by his friend Henry Woolf.
MovieTV MovieAn 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.
The Basement
1967
Series9
TVTalk ShowThe 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.
Tony Awards
1956
TV5.6DocumentaryTalk ShowThe South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show 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.
The South Bank Show
1978 · 7 votes
TV7.2DramaTheatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
1964 · 5 votes
TV5.2DramaAn anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.
The Wednesday Play
1964 · 5 votes
TV6.6NewsDocumentaryA weekly BBC Two magazine programme focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture and more.
The Culture Show
2004 · 8 votes
TV7.0DramaComedyAn anthology of plays and novels adapted into feature length TV movies, broadcast on BBC2 from September 1977 to April 1979.
BBC2 Play of the Week
1977 · 1 votes
TV8.7Talk ShowIn-depth interviews with hard-hitting questions and sensitive topics being covered as famous personalities from all walks of life talk about the highs and lows in their lives.
HARDtalk
1997 · 3 votes
TVDramaAn 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.
TVDramaA series of dramas featuring staged theatre plays.
Theatre Night
1985