ANTONY SHER

(14 June 1949 - 2 December 2021)

The British actor Antony Sher, who has died aged 72, was born into a Lithuanian Jewish family in South Africa but left for the UK in 1968. He was originally turned down by both the Central School of Speech & Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the latter advising him to pursue another career entirely. Notwithstanding this early rejection, he studied at the Webber Douglas Academy and later the Manchester University Drama Department and became a successful actor anyway, beginning his career at the Everyman in Liverpool from 1972. He went on to work at the Royal Court, the ICA and the Barbican Centre and also in London's West End in plays by Willy Russell, Mike Leigh and Jean-Paul Sartre. He was outstanding in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy and also worked for the Gay Sweatshop theatre group.

He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982 and established himself as one of the finest classical actors of his generation in Moliere's Tartuffe (also on TV), playing The Fool in King Lear (which he also filmed), Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and was also in other Shakespeare plays as well works by Kafka, Tom Stoppard, David Edgar, and Pam Gems' Stanley (as Stanley Spencer). He was particularly noted for his Richard III, giving the part a new aspect as he leapt about the stage on crutches like a bottled spider. He also appeared at the National Theatre and was awarded best actor in the Olivier Awards for Richard III, Torch Song Trilogy and Stanley.

Sher also made his mark in films and on television from 1973. Among his films were John Schlesinger's Yanks (1979), Richard Lester's Superman II, Philip Saville's Shadey, written by Snoo Wilson, Terry Jones' Erik the Viking and Mr Toad's Wild Ride, Elijah Moshinsky's Genghis Cohn, Nancy Meckler's Alive and Kicking (aka Indian Summer), John Madden's Mrs Brown and Shakespeare in Love, Peter Richardson's Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Joe Johnston's The Wolfman and Tom Harper's War Book (2014). On television he made a great impression early on as Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man (1981) and went on to appear in The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, etc and Joe Orton Laid Bare, his last TV appearance, in 2017. In 2015 Antony Sher married RSC director Gregory Doran, with whom he often worked professionally, following their civil partnership from 2005. The actor was also a notable painter and playwright. He became Sir Antony Sher when he was awarded the KBE in 2000 for his services to the theatre.

MICHAEL DARVELL