Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter Obituary

Published by Legacy Remembers on Dec. 25, 2008.
LONDON (AP) — British Nobel laureate Harold Pinter — who produced some of his generation's most influential dramas and later became a staunch critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq — has died, his widow said Thursday. He was 78.

Pinter died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, according to his second wife Antonia Fraser.

In recent years he had seized the platform offered by his 2005 Nobel Literature prize to denounce President George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the war in Iraq.

But he was best known for exposing the complexities of the emotional battlefield.

His writing featured cool, menacing pauses in dialogue that reflected his characters' deep emotional struggles and spawned a new adjective found in several dictionaries: "Pinter-esque."

"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel Academy said. "With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution."

His characters' internal fears and longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives were set against the neat lives they constructed in order to try to survive. Usually enclosed in one room, the acts usually illustrated the characters' lives as a sort of grim game with actions that often contradicted words. Gradually, the layers were peeled back.

"How can you write a happy play?" he once said. "Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life."

Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and put his hand to 22 screenplays.

The working-class milieu of his first dramas reflected his early life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London's East End.

Born Oct. 30, 1930, in the London neighborhood of Hackney, he was forced along with other children during World War II to evacuate to rural Cornwall in 1939. He was 14 before he returned. By then, he was entranced with Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway.

By 1950, Pinter had begun to publish poetry and appeared on stage as an actor. Pinter began to write for the stage, and published "The Room" in 1957.

A year later, his first major play, "The Birthday Party" was produced in the West End.

In it, intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent, telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind."

The play closed after just one week to disastrous reviews, but Pinter continued to write and was most prolific between 1957 and 1965.

"With his earliest work, he stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers, too," British playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced.

"I find critics on the whole a pretty unnecessary bunch of people," Pinter once said.

In "The Caretaker," (1959) a manipulative old man threatens the relationship of two brothers, while "The Homecoming" (1964) explores the hidden rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a woman.

In "Silence" and "Landscape," (1967 and 1968) Pinter moved from exploring the underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of fantasy and reality that occupy the individual.

"The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear," Pinter once said. "It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness."

"Betrayal" (1978) was reportedly based on the disintegration of his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, who appeared in many of his first plays.

Their marriage ended in 1980 after Pinter's long affair with BBC presenter Joan Bakewell. He then married Fraser. Merchant died shortly afterward of alcoholism-related disease.

During the late 1980s, his work became more overtly political; he said he had a responsibility to pursue his role as "a citizen of the world in which I live, (and) insist upon taking responsibility."

In the 1980s, Pinter's only stage plays were one-acts: "A Kind of Alaska" (1982), "One for the Road" (1984) and the 20-minute "Mountain Language" (1988).

Off-stage he was also highly political: Pinter turned down former Prime Minister John Major's offer of a knighthood and strongly attacked Blair when NATO bombed Serbia. He later referred to Blair a "deluded idiot" for supporting Bush's war in Iraq.

He said he deeply regretted having voting for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Tony Blair in 1997.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Pinter a "great playwright and lucid, agitated and uncompromising humanist."

He called the Nobel "a belated consecration of his immense work, but also an homage to a man's courage and commitment against all forms of barbarism."

The prize gave Pinter a global platform, from which he frequently and bitterly decried the Iraq war.

"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in his Nobel lecture, which he recorded rather than traveling to the Swedish capital of Stockholm.

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand?" he asked, in a hoarse voice.

Though he had been looking forward to giving the Nobel lecture — calling it "the longest speech I will ever have made" — he canceled his attendance at the award ceremony, and then announced he would skip the lecture as well on his doctor's advice.

In March 2005, Pinter announced his retirement as a playwright to concentrate on politics. But he created a radio play, "Voices," that was broadcast on BBC radio to mark his 75th birthday.

"I have written 29 plays, and I think that's really enough," Pinter said. "I think the world has had enough of my plays."

Pinter's influence was felt in the United States in the plays of Sam Shepard and David Mamet.

Friend and biographer Michael Billington said Pinter "was a political figure, a polemicist and carried on fierce battles against American foreign policy and often British foreign policy, but in private he was the most incredibly loyal of friends and generous of human beings."

"He was a great man as well actually as a great playwright," Billington said. Pinter is survived by his son, Daniel, from his marriage to Merchant.


Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press

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December 29, 2008

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9 Entries

April 1, 2010

For Harold...

WEEP NOT FOR ME


Do not weep for me when I no longer dwell among the wonders of the earth; for my larger self is free, and my soul rejoices on the other side of pain...on the other side of darkness.

Do not weep for me, for I am a ray of sunshine that touches your skin, a tropical breeze upon your face, the hush of joy within your heart and the innocence of babes in mothers arms.

I am the hope in a darkened night. And, in your hour of need, I will be there to comfort you. I will share your tears, your joys, your fears, your disappointments and your triumphs.

Do not weep for me, for I am cradled
in the arms of God. I walk with the angels, and hear the music beyond the stars.

Do not weep for me, for I am within you;
I am peace, love, I am a soft wind that caresses the flowers. I am the calm that follows a raging storm. I am an autumns leaf that floats among the garden of God, and I am pure white snow that softly falls upon your hand.

Do not weep for me, for I shall never die, as long as you remember me...
with a smile and a sigh.


© Joe Fazio
~
[email protected] /Joe Fazio,
Beverly Hills, California

Janine Smith

December 29, 2008

To my dearest family, some things I'd like to say...
but first of all, to let you know, that I arrived okay.
I'm writing this from heaven. Here I dwell with God above.
Here, there's no more tears of sadness; here is just eternal love.

Please do not be unhappy just because I'm out of sight.
Remember that I'm with you every morning, noon and night.
That day I had to leave you when my life on earth was through,
God picked me up and hugged me and He said, "I welcome you."

It's good to have you back again; you were missed while you were gone.
As for your dearest family, they'll be here later on.
I need you here badly; you're part of my plan.
There's so much that we have to do, to help our mortal man.

God gave me a list of things, that he wished for me to do.
And foremost on the list, was to watch and care for you.
And when you lie in bed at night, the day's chores put to flight.
God and I are closest to you....in the middle of the night.

When you think of my life on earth, and all those loving years
because you are only human, they are bound to bring you tears.
But do not be afraid to cry; it does relieve the pain.
Remember there would be no flowers, unless there was some rain.

I wish that I could tell you all that God has planned.
But if I were to tell you, you wouldn't understand.
But one thing is for certain, though my life on earth is o'er.
I'm closer to you now, than I ever was before.

There are many rocky roads ahead of you and many hills to climb;
but together we can do it by taking one day at a time.
It was always my philosophy and I'd like it for you too...
that as you give unto the world, the world will give to you.

If you can help somebody who's in sorrow and pain,
then you can say to God at night......"My day was not in vain."
And now I am contented....that my life has been worthwhile,
knowing as I passed along the way, I made somebody smile.

So if you meet somebody who is sad and feeling low,
just lend a hand to pick him up, as on your way you go.
When you're walking down the street, and you've got me on your mind;
I'm walking in your footsteps only half a step behind.

And when it's time for you to go.... from that body to be free,
remember you're not going.....you're coming here to me.

Ruth Ann Mahaffey (author)
©Copyright 1998-2008

submitted by JS [email protected]

Chele

December 28, 2008

I am very sorry to hear of Harold's passing. May God's promise to bring our loved ones back to us bring you much comfort.(Luke 23:43) And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.”

Henryk Zaleski

December 28, 2008

Rest in peace.

D. ZIMMERMAN

December 26, 2008

REST IN PEACE HAROLD PINTER

Scott

December 26, 2008

I am so sorry to hear of Harolds passing. May God's words in Revelation comfort you.

(Revelation 21:4) And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”

Anna Högberg

December 26, 2008

RIP, Mr Pinter, and my sincere condolences to his family. His speach to the Nobel Academy in 2005 made me proud to be alive. One man can make a difference; Mr Pinter did make a difference.

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April 1, 2010

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December 29, 2008

Janine Smith posted to the memorial.

December 28, 2008

Chele posted to the memorial.