Biography
Ronald Harwood was a South African-born British playwright and screenwriter. Born Ronald Horwitz in Cape Town on 9 November 1934, he moved to England in 1951 and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He later anglicised his surname and began writing in the early 1960s after working in theatre.
He adapted several of his own stage plays for the screen, including The Dresser (1983). Harwood wrote the screenplay for Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2003. Other screenplays include The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), Oliver Twist (2005), Being Julia (2004) and Australia (2008).
Harwood died on 8 September 2020.
