Harold Pinter

British playwright (1930–2008)

OverviewAI-generated

Harold Pinter was a writer whose work period spanned from 1947 to 2003. He was born on 10 October 1930 and died on 24 December 2008. He also used the pseudonym David Baron. His notable works include Essencial, Die Heimkehr, The caretaker, Other places, and O monta-cargas.

Pinter received the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is recognized in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection and the Nobel Literature collection. His works are referenced by 1,952 other encyclopedia articles. He has 391 works listed in the Open Library.

Similar artists include Harriet Walter, Samuel Beckett, Missa Luba, James Joyce, and Tom Stoppard. He has 298 listeners and a playcount of 1724 on Last.fm. Five works are listed in Crossref. Quotes attributed to him include "Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?" and "The weasel under the cocktail cabinet."

Synthesized by Vinony from 23 facts across 8 sources: Wikidata, Last.fm, Crossref, Wikiquote, Open Library, Nobel Prize, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 10 October 1930
Died: 24 December 2008
Works: 391

Top works

Essencial
Die Heimkehr
The caretaker
Other places
O monta-cargas

via Open Library + Wikidata

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 298
Total plays: 1,724

Similar artists

Harriet WalterSamuel BeckettMissa LubaJames JoyceTom Stoppard

Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature, was born October 10, 1930, in London's working-class Hackney district to Hyman and Frances Pinter, Eastern European Jews who had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Portugal. Hyman (known as "Jack") was a tailor specializing in women's clothing and Frances was a homemaker. The Pinters, whose families hailed from Odessa and Poland in the Russian Empire, were part of a wave of Jewish emigration to the UK at the turn of the last century. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Harold+Pinter">Read more on Last.fm</a>

via Last.fm · Harold Pinter

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

A New Equation to Estimate Glomerular Filtration Rate
· 2009 · cited 22,584x
A global reference for human genetic variation
· 2015 · cited 17,794x
Overview of the<i>CCP</i>4 suite and current developments
· 2011 · cited 11,958x
TopHat2: accurate alignment of transcriptomes in the presence of insertions, deletions and gene fusions
· 2013 · cited 11,182x
Differential gene and transcript expression analysis of RNA-seq experiments with TopHat and Cufflinks
· 2012 · cited 10,972x

via Crossref · CC0

Quotes

“If only I could get down to Sidcup! I've been waiting for the weather to break. He's got my papers, this man I left them with, it's got it all down there, I could prove everything.”
“Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?”
“The weasel under the cocktail cabinet.”
“I tend to believe that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth. [...] Certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either.”
“I suggest that US foreign policy can still be defined as "kiss my ass or I'll kick your head in." But of course it doesn't put it like that. It talks of "low intensity conflict..." What all this adds up to is a disease at the very centre of language, so that language becomes a permanent masquerade, a tapestry of lies.”
“Praise the Lord for all good things. We blew their balls into shards of dust,Into shards of fucking dust. We did it. Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize in Literature2005
“who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms”

NobelPrize.org →

Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Harold
Gender: male
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Place of birth: London
Place of death: London
Spouse: Antonia Fraser
Occupation: director
Educated at: Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Languages spoken: English language
Religion: atheism
Award: BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay
Notable work: The Caretaker
Official website: www.haroldpinter.org
Image: Harold Pinter 1962.jpg
Work location: United Kingdom

Show 21 more facts

place of burial: Kensal Green Cemetery
date of birth: 1930-10-10
date of death: 2008-12-24
Commons category: Harold Pinter
topic's main category: Category:Harold Pinter
cause of death: liver cancer
member of: Royal Society of Literature
manner of death: natural causes
nominated for: Tony Award for Best Play
archives at: Harry Ransom Center
described by source: UbuWeb
name in native language: Harold Pinter
ethnic group: Jewish people
pseudonym: David Baron
writing language: English language
start of work period: 1947-00-00
related category: Category:Films with screenplays by Harold Pinter
affiliation: Stop the War Coalition
end of work period: 2003-00-00
P12674: Francis Bossman
P12749: Dmitrov

Sources (14)

via Wikidata · CC0

~40 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Harold Pinter (/ˈpɪntər/; 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 in Hackney, east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School. He was a sprinter and 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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Harold Pinter” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (6)

Available in 97 languages

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via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0

Harold Pinter