Who was Tom Stoppard? All about Oscar-winning playwright who died at 88

Oscar-winning playwright Tom Stoppard passed away at the age of 88.

Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard died at his home in Dorset, England, as announced by his agents.

“He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit and his profound love of the English language."

Stoppard inspired millions with his stories and gained great acclaim as well as a record five Tony Awards for best play for his works Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the first award, and Leopoldstadt, the last one. Not only that, but he also won the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, and the rest of his Tonys were for The Real Thing in 1984, Travesties in 1976, and The Coast of Utopia in 2007.

Considered one of the finest British playwrights of all time and inspiring the term “Stoppardian,” he started his career as a journalist and drama critic and went on to win his first Academy Award nomination for co-writing the 1985 Robert De Niro film Brazil, along with director Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown.

Tom Stoppard revised the screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, though it went uncredited, with director Steven Spielberg, who went on to say,

“Tom is pretty much responsible for every line of dialogue.”

Talking about one of his glory projects, Shakespeare in Love, featuring Joseph Fiennes, who played Shakespeare, and Gwyneth Paltrow, who played the muse Viola De Lesseps, Tom Stoppard told the Los Angeles Times in 1998,

"There were moments when the challenge became, ‘How does Shakespeare speak when he’s just speaking to a friend?' Does he sound like Shakespeare? Does he sound as though he’s going to be Shakespeare, or does he sound like anybody else?"

“The thing that makes life easier for someone writing fiction about Shakespeare is that there are very few signposts, very few agreed-upon facts and lots of spaces to invent. Some of the film is pure mischief. But then again, you’re riding on the back of the most famous love story ever written, so there are lots of strands to work with.”

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Tom Stoppard had an illustrious career working on screenplays for Otto Preminger’s The Human Factor, Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, Michael Apted’s Enigma, Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, and many more.

The renowned playwright was also knighted in 1997. As for his personal life, he had been married three times and had four children.

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