HAROLD PINTER - WRITER HAROLD PINTER DEAD AT 78

WRITER HAROLD PINTER DEAD AT 78

Harold Pinter, who wrote 32 stage plays, 22 screenplays, numerous TV plays and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, died on Wednesday after an eight-year battle with cancer He was 78. His screenplays included The Quiller Memorandum (1965), The Last Tycoon (1976), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), Reunion (1989) and Sleuth (2007). Too frail to attend the Nobel Awards in 2005, he delivered his acceptance speech on video -- and used it to denounce America's invasion of Iraq, calling it "a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law." He went on to accuse the U.S. of supporting "every right-wing military dictatorship" and committing international crimes in the name of democracy. His obituary in today's (Friday) New York Times, written by theater critic Ben Brantley and the late Mel Gussow, runs a whopping 3,260 words.

26/12/2008