Antony Sher
Sir Antony Sher (14 June 1949 – 2 December 2021) was a British actor, writer and theatre director of South African origin. A two-time Laurence Olivier Award winner and a four-time nominee, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 and toured in many roles, as well as appearing on film and television. In 2001, he starred in his cousin Ronald Harwood's play "Mahler's Conversion", and said that the story of a composer sacrificing his faith for his career echoed his own identity struggles. During his 2017 "Commonwealth Tour", Prince Charles referred to Sher as  his favourite actor. Sher and his partner and collaborator Gregory Doran became one of the first same-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership in the UK. Early life. Sher was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Margery (Abramowitz) and Emmanuel Sher, who worked in business. He grew up in the suburb of Sea Point where he attended Sea Point High School, and was a first cousin, once removed, of the playwright Sir Ronald Harwood. Sher worked mainly in the United Kingdom and became a British citizen in 1979. In 1968 , after completing his compulsory National Service in the South African Defence Force, he left for London to audition at the Central School of Speech and Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), but was unsuccessful. He instead studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1969 to 1971 and subsequently on the one-year postgraduate course run jointly by Manchester University Drama Department and the Manchester School of Theatre. Career. In the 1970s, Sher was part of a group of young actors and writers working at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. Comprising figures such as writers Alan  Bleasdale and Willy Russell and fellow actors Trevor Eve, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Pryce, and Julie Walters, Sher summed up the work of the company with the phrase "anarchy ruled". He also performed with the theatre group Gay Sweatshop, before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1982. While a member of the RSC, Sher was cast in the title role in Molière's "Tartuffe", and played the Fool in "King Lear". His major break came in 1984, when he performed the title role in "Richard III" and won the Laurence Olivier Award. Also for the RSC, Sher performed the lead  in such productions as "Tamburlaine", "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Stanley", and "Macbeth", and in 2014 played Falstaff in "Henry IV" Part 1 and "Henry IV" Part 2 in Stratford-upon-Avon and on national tour. He played the eponymous 'King Lear' from 2016 to 2018. He also played Johnnie in Athol Fugard's "Hello and Goodbye", Iago in "Othello", Malvolio in "Twelfth Night", and Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice". Sher received his second Laurence Olivier Award in 1997 for his performance as Stanley Spencer in "Stanley". In 2001, Sher played the role of the composer Gustav Mahler in Ronald Harwood 's play "Mahler's Conversion", about Mahler's decision to renounce his Jewish faith prior to his appointment as conductor and artistic director of the Vienna State Opera House in 1897. Speaking about the role to "The Guardian"s Rupert Smith, Sher revealed: "When I came to England in 1968, at 19, I looked around me and I didn't see any Jewish leading men in the classical theatre, so I thought it best to conceal my Jewishness. Also, I quickly became conscious of apartheid when I arrived here, and I didn't want to be known as a white South  African. I was brought up in a very apolitical family. We were happy to enjoy the benefits of apartheid without questioning the system behind it. Reading about apartheid when I came to England was a terrible shock. So I lost the accent almost immediately, and if anyone asked me where I was from I would lie. If they asked where I went to school, I'd say Hampstead, which got me into all sorts of trouble because of course everyone else went to school in Hampstead and they wanted to know which one. Then there was my sexuality. The theatre  was full of gay people, but none of them were out, and there was that ugly story about Gielgud being arrested for cottaging, so I thought I'd better hide that as well. Each of these things went into the closet until my entire identity was in the closet. That's why this play appealed to me so much: it's about an artist changing his identity in order to get what he wants." In 2015 he played Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman". He also had several film credits to his name, including "Yanks" (1979), "Superman II" (1980 ), "Shadey" (1985), and "Erik the Viking" (1989). Sher starred as the Chief Weasel in the 1996 film adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows" and as Benjamin Disraeli in the 1997 film "Mrs Brown". Sher's television appearances include the mini-series "The History Man" (1981) and "The Jury" (2002). In 2003, he played the central character in an adaptation of the J. G. Ballard short story "The Enormous Space", filmed as "Home" and broadcast on BBC Four. In "Hornblower" (1999), he played the role of French royalist Colonel de Moncoutant, Marquis de Muzillac, in the episode "The Frogs and  the Lobsters". Sher's more recent credits included a cameo in the British comedy film "Three and Out" (2008) and the role of Akiba in the television play "God on Trial" (2008). Sher was cast in the role of Thráin II, father of Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's "", but appears only in the Extended Edition of the film. In 2018, he played the title role in "King Lear" and was the only person to play both the Fool and King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He returned to Stratford-upon-Avon in 2019 to perform in "Kunene and  the King" with John Kani. Other work. Sher's books included the memoirs "Year of the King" (1985), "Woza Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus in South Africa" (with Gregory Doran, 1997), "Beside Myself" (an autobiography, 2002), "Primo Time" (2005), and "Year of the Fat Knight" (2015), a book of paintings and drawings, "Characters" (1990), and the novels "Middlepost" (1989), "Cheap Lives" (1995), "The Indoor Boy" (1996). and "The Feast" (1999). His 2018 book "Year of the Mad King" won the 2019 Theatre Book Prize, awarded by the Society for Theatre Research. Sher also wrote several plays, including "I.D." (2003) and "Primo" (2004 ). The latter was adapted as a film in 2005. In 2008, "The Giant", the first of his plays in which Sher did not feature, was performed at the Hampstead Theatre. The main characters are Michelangelo (at the time of his creation of David), Leonardo da Vinci, and Vito, their mutual apprentice. In 2005, Sher directed "Breakfast With Mugabe" at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. The production moved to the Soho Theatre in April 2006 and the Duchess Theatre one month later. In 2007, he made a crime documentary for Channel 4, titled "Murder Most Foul", about his native South  Africa. It examines the double murder of actor Brett Goldin and fashion designer Richard Bloom. In 2011, Sher appeared in the BBC TV series "The Shadow Line" in the role of Glickman. Personal life. Sher's first partner (for over 17 years) was the actor Jim Hooper. In 2005, Sher and his partner – director Gregory Doran, with whom he frequently collaborated professionally – became one of the first gay couples to enter into a civil partnership in the UK. They married on 30 December 2015, a little over ten years after their civil partnership. On 10 September 2021 it was announced  that Sher was terminally ill, leading his husband Doran to take compassionate leave from the Royal Shakespeare Company to care for him. Sher died from cancer at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon on 2 December 2021, at age 72. Awards and nominations. BAFTA TV Awards. 0 win, 1 nomination Laurence Olivier Awards. 2 wins, 4 nominations Drama Desk Awards. 1 win and 1 nomination Evening Standard Theatre Awards. 1 win and 1 nomination Evening Standard British Film Awards. 1 win and 1 nomination Screen Actors Guild Awards. 1 win and 1 nomination Theatre Awards UK (TMA). 1 win and  1 nomination Tony Awards. 0 win and 1 nomination