Stoppard earned five Tonys for Best Play and had a hand in penning screenplays for films like Steven Spielberg's &34;Empire of the Sun&34; and Terry Gilliam's &34;Brazil.&34; Tom Stoppard, Oscarwinning Shakespeare in Love screenwriter and legendary playwright, dies at 88 Stoppard earned five Tonys for Best Play and had a hand in penning screenplays for films like Steven Spielberg's &34;Empire of the Sun&34; and Terry Gilliam's &34;Brazil.&34; and Wesley Stenzel :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/WesleyStenzelauthorphoto32b61793a2784639af623f2ae091477e.jpg) Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at .

Stoppard earned five Tonys for Best Play and had a hand in penning screenplays for films like Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" and Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

Tom Stoppard, Oscar-winning *Shakespeare in Love *screenwriter and legendary playwright, dies at 88

Stoppard earned five Tonys for Best Play and had a hand in penning screenplays for films like Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" and Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

and Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

EW's editorial guidelines

November 29, 2025 1:27 p.m. ET

Tom Stoppard. Credit: Dominik Bindl/Getty Images

Tom Stoppard, the legendary playwright and screenwriter, has died at 88.

United Agents, the talent agency that represented the writer, confirmed Stoppard's death in a statement to * *on Saturday.

"We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved client and friend Tom Stoppard has died peacefully at home in Dorset surrounded by his family," the agency wrote. "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. It was an honor to work with Tom and to know him."

A cause of death was not provided.

Tom Stoppard in 1974.

Chris Ridley/Radio Times/Getty

"Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else" is a famous line from Stoppard's acclaimed fantasia *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead*, but after the news of the famed writer's death, the significance of those words has amplified.

The Czech-born British playwright, who left his birth country as a refugee when Nazi rule loomed, began his career as a journalist and radio play author before translating his wordsmith intellectualism into heady, often comical plays about loquacious romantics. His 1966 work *Rosencrantz*, which chronicled the plight of two minor players in *Hamlet* and their building confusion over the progression of events in the Bard's tragedy, kicked his decades-long theater career into high gear, winning him the Tony for Best Play.

Tom Stoppard in 2020.

Noam Galai/Getty

Stoppard would become well acquainted with that award, scoring a total of five Tonys over the years, including for his WWI drama *Travesties*; the oft-revived couples inquiry *The Real Thing; *his lush historical epic *The Coast of Utopia*, which coursed the trajectory of pre-revolution Russia across three-plus decades over three separate plays featuring 44 actors; and his final play, *Leopoldstadt*, which charted the history of a Jewish family in Vienna across the first half of the 20th century.

His other prominent stage work included *Arcadia*, *Jumpers*, *After Magritte*, and *Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land*.

Celebrity deaths 2025: Remembering the stars who've died this year

Why 'Leopoldstadt' is Tom Stoppard's most personal play ever

Stoppard's plays were so labyrinthine in thought and scholarly density that many people attended them despite not fully comprehending them or developing a downright disdain for them — Christopher Durang's Tony-winning comedy *Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike* even had one character lamenting having to sit through one of his play series.

Still, his writing invigorated adventurous, open-minded theatergoers (even when they couldn't always wrap their heads around the content), and actors such as Glenn Close, Ethan Hawke, Stockard Channing, and Billy Crudup jumped at the opportunity to star in his works, with many of them snatching their own Tony Awards for the privilege.

Stoppard was also a favorite of major filmmakers, lending his pen to movies like Steven Spielberg's *Empire of the Sun*, Terry Gilliam's *Brazil*, and Joe Wright's *Anna Karenina. *Spielberg also employed Stoppard's wit for an uncredited polish of the screenplay for *Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade*. He also provided uncredited rewrites on George Lucas' *Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith* and Tim Burton's *Sleepy Hollow*.

Tom Stoppard at the London premiere of 'Shakespeare in Love' in 1999.

Dave Benett/Getty

Along with* *John Madden, Stoppard won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the 1998 Best Picture winner *Shakespeare in Love*. He later adapted Ford Madox Ford's *Parade's End* into a 2012 five-episode series for the BBC, which earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries/Movie.

The writer also tried his hand at directing, helming his own 1990 film adaptation of *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern*, starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.***

Stoppard, who was married three times and the father of four sons — including Ed Stoppard, a well-known U.K. actor — was often compared in his youth to a rock star, notably Mick Jagger, due to his pouty stare; he was, in fact, a rock enthusiast, writing the classics-scored 2006 counterculture play *Rock 'n' Roll*.

Tom Stoppard in 2007.

MATT CARASELLA/Patrick McMullan via Getty

The Olivier Awards announced on Saturday that London's West End theaters will dim their lights for two minutes on Dec. 2 in remembrance of the playwright. "We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, colleagues, and all whose lives he enriched," the awards' representatives said in a statement on social media, praising Stoppard's "remarkable range and enduring impact of his work on both stage and screen."**

In an interview with EW in 2022, Stoppard discussed his decision to bring a more personal spin to his 2020 play, *Leopoldstadt, *which would be his last. "Usually, I'm ducking and diving when it comes to writing about myself," he said at the time. "I write about what I'm thinking. But I don't write about what I'm living. And in this case, I got to a point in my life where I just wanted to write as honestly as I could about what it was like to be me at that time."

The playwright also reflected on his cultural imprint. "Obviously, there's theater which can eviscerate people, disturb their emotions, and so on," he said. "But what joins it all together is that it's one of society's recreations, and I believe in the importance of that. People should be told a story and have it acted out for them in a way which widens and brightens their own lives. It's not work, it's recreation … If I'm going to have a legacy, I'd like my theater to continue to be an occasional event and not just continue to exist as a text."**

- Celebrities & Creators

- Celebrity Obituary

Original Article on Source

Source: "EW Celebrity"

Read More

---

Source: Celebrity

Published: November 30, 2025 at 05:38PM on Source: MARIO MAG

#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle