Stoppard Biography
Tom Stoppard was born as Thomas Straussler on July 3, 1937 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia. His father was a doctor who worked for Bata, a shoe company. In 1937 the family moved to Singapore to escape World War II, but the effort failed, and his father was killed in a 1942 invasion. His mother, brother, and he were then evacuated to India. In 1946 they moved to England, where his mother married Kenneth Stoppard, an officer in the British army. Tom spent the rest of his childhood there, being educated in a prep school in Nottinghamshire and a grammar school in Yorkshire. At 17, he began four years of work for the Western Daily Press in Bristol, and the Bristol Evening World as a columnist, theatre critic, and news reporter.
In 1960, he began his career as a professional writer by finishing his play, A Walk on the Water, later known as Enter a Free Man. He also began working as a freelance writer, wrote for the magazine Scene, wrote three short stories for Faber & Faber, and was commissioned to write a novel, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon ('66). He also wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, a one-act play, and recieved a grant to visit Berlin for five months. He married Jose Ingle in 1965, and had two sons by her, Oliver and Barnaby. During his visit to Germany he had begun work on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and in 1966 the Royal Shakespeare Company bought an option in it. It was debuted in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was instantly popular. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead then won the 1968 Tony and the New York Drama Critics Circle award.
In 1971 he divorced Jose Ingle and married Dr. Miriam Moore-Robinson the next year. He had two more sons, William and Edmund. Beginning in 1972, he began an intense period of study and playwriting. He earned Masters of Literature from the University of Bristol, Brunel University, and the University of Sussex and received honorary degrees from Leeds University, University of London, Kenyon College, and York University. During this time, he wrote Jumpers ('72), Travesties ('74), Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land ('76), Night and Day ('79), and The Real Thing ('82). He has also written the screenplay Empire of the Sun, a 1987 Steven Spielberg film.
Stoppard Bio Credits: