British playwright Tom Stoppard, a towering figure in theater and film, died on Nov. 29, 2025, at his home in Dorset, England. He was 88.

Born Tomas Straussler on July 3, 1937, in Zlin, then part of Czechoslovakia, into a Jewish family, he and his family fled Nazi persecution — first to Singapore, then to India, before finally settling in Britain in 1946. He attended school in Yorkshire, and at age 17 began working as a journalist, later becoming a theater and film critic. He got his start with several minor stage plays, and achieved a breakthrough with the 1966 premiere of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” an absurdist reinterpretation of two minor figures from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The play was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before transferring to London’s West End, and then to Broadway, where it earned him his first Tony Award.

Over the next six decades, Stoppard wrote a string of celebrated works. He was honored with five Tony Awards for Best Play. In recognition of his contributions to literature and theater, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

He was in his 50s before he discovered the truth about his Jewish origins, and into his 80s by the time the knowledge metabolized into “Leopoldstadt,” which followed a once-prosperous Viennese family from 1899 to 1955.