Acclaimed Shakespearean actor Sir Antony Sher dies, aged 72
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Sir Antony Sher starred in a number of RSC plays, including a role in 2016 in King Lear, as well as playing Falstaff in Henry IV and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman.
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Sir Antony Sher, one of Britain's finest contemporary actors who played almost all the great Shakespearean roles from King Lear to Shylock, has died from cancer aged 72.

The award-winning theatre and film star was once described by Prince Charles as his favourite actor and starred in several successful 1990s films including Shakespeare In Love and Mrs Brown alongside Dame Judi Dench.

Charles and Camilla went to see Sir Antony perform on a number of occasions and invited him and Mr Doran in 2004 to a weekend for members of the arts community at the Queen's Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Sir Antony starred in a number of Royal Shakespeare Company plays, including a role in 2016 in King Lear, as well as playing Falstaff in Henry IV and Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman.

He was also in TV series including The History Man and Murphy's Law. In 1985, he won an Olivier Award for his energetic portrayal of Richard III as a villainous hunchback, propelling himself around stage on crutches.

While at the RSC, Sir Antony met his husband, Gregory Doran, who would become the company's artistic director. They were one of the first couples to have a civil partnership in Britain after same-sex unions were legalised in 2005. Sir Antony and Mr Doran married in 2015 when gay marriage became legal.

Mr Doran stepped back from his role in September to care for his husband after his condition was diagnosed as terminal. The RSC said Mr Doran will remain on compassionate leave and is expected to return to work next year.

Tributes came in from It's A Sin screenwriter Russell T Davies who described Sir Anthony as a 'wonderful man', actor Samuel West who said many of his performances 'stay with me after decades', and choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne who mourned a 'truly great loss'.

The Prince of Wales paid tribute to Sir Antony Sher as 'a giant of the stage at the height of his genius' following the actor's death at the age of 72.

In a statement, Charles said he was 'deeply saddened' to hear of Sir Antony's passing.

'As the President of the Royal Shakespeare Company, I had the great joy and privilege of knowing him for many years, and admired him enormously for the consummate skill and passion he brought to every role,' Charles said.

'My most treasured memory of him was as Falstaff in a brilliant production of Greg Doran's. I feel particularly blessed to have known him, but we have all lost a giant of the stage at the height of his genius.'

RSC executive director Catherine Mallyon and artistic director Erica Whyman said they were 'deeply saddened' today, adding: 'Antony had a long association with the RSC and a hugely celebrated career on stage and screen.'

The company's chair Shriti Vadera said the actor – who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 - was 'beloved' within the organisation 'and touched and enriched the lives of so many people'.

Meanwhile the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the charity which cares for Shakespeare's family homes, said: 'We are deeply saddened at news of the death of Sir Antony Sher, the outstanding Shakespearian actor, artist and author.

'We offer our sincere condolences and thoughts to Antony's husband Gregory Doran and to Antony's family, friends and associates including all at the RSC.'

Born in Cape Town in 1949, Sir Anthony moved to Britain in the late 1960s to study drama. He joined the RSC in 1982 and his breakthrough role was as the usurping king in Richard III, which won him best actor at the Oliviers - which was jointly for his role in Torch Song Trilogy.

He went on to play most of Shakespeare's major male roles, including Falstaff in the Henry IV plays, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Iago in Othello and the title characters in Macbeth and King Lear.

Non-Shakespearean roles for the company, based in the Bard's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, included Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and the title role in Moliere's Tartuffe.

Sir Antony also performed with Liverpool's innovative Everyman Theatre and at many of London's main theatres, getting his first West End starring role as a drag artist in Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy in 1985.

He won a second Olivier, and received a Tony nomination, for playing artist Stanley Spencer in Pam Gems' Stanley at the National Theatre and on Broadway.

Sir Antony adapted Primo Levi's powerful Auschwitz memoir If This is A Man into a one-man stage show, Primo, that ran on Broadway in 2005.

His last role for the RSC was in South African writer John Kani's 'Kunene and The King,' in which Sir Antony played a veteran actor diagnosed with cancer.

Sir Antony's film roles included Dr Moth in Shakespeare in Love, Benjamin Disraeli in Mrs Brown and Adolf Hitler in Churchill: The Hollywood Years.

Sir Antony also wrote several novels and theatrical memoirs, along with an autobiography, Beside Myself.

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro said Sir Antony 's performances 'profoundly deepened my understanding of Shakespeare'.

'He was a brilliant actor and an incredibly kind and thoughtful person,' Mr Shapiro said. 'Hamlet put it best: 'take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.''

Harriet Walter, who starred opposite Sher in Macbeth and Death of a Salesman, said: 'I think he always felt like an outsider and his outsider's vision was his strength.

'He had abundant creative energy and protean powers and an almost clinical curiosity about what makes people tick,' she said.

Ms Mallyon and Ms Whyman said in a statement: 'We are deeply saddened by this news, and our thoughts and sincere condolences are with Greg, and with Antony's family and their friends at this devastating time.

'Antony had a long association with the RSC and a hugely celebrated career on stage and screen.

'Antony's last production with the company was in the two-hander Kunene And The King, written by his friend and fellow South African actor, writer and activist, John Kani.'

The statement added: 'Antony was deeply loved and hugely admired by so many colleagues.

'He was a ground-breaking role model for many young actors, and it is impossible to comprehend that he is no longer with us.

'We will ensure friends far and wide have the chance to share tributes and memories in the days to come.'

Mr Kani said in a tribute: 'Both Tony Sher and I were born when our country, South Africa, was the worst place a child could be born let alone to be raised by parents who worked very hard to prepare their children for a difficult future - Apartheid South Africa.

'By the grace of his God and my ancestors, like Romeo and Juliet we found each other in 1973.

'We travelled together as compatriots, comrades in the struggle for a better South Africa, as fellow artists, and we both had the honour of celebrating together 25 years of South Africa's democracy in my latest play, Kunene And The King.

'I am at peace with you my friend and myself. Exit my King. Your Brother.'

The National Theatre posted a statement on Twitter from director Rufus Norris, saying: 'With the tragic passing of Antony Sher, one of the great titans has left us.

'His contribution and example to our theatre world was exemplary, and his standing within the ranks of National Theatre actors could not be higher.'

Meanwhile, the acclaimed author and professor, Dan Rebellato, also paid tribute on Twitter. He wrote: 'What a life, what a career. Actor, writer, artist. Antony Sher was extraordinary at all of those things.

'Richard III, The History Man, Primo Levi, King Lear. What a loss, but how lucky we were to have him for so long.'

American actor, playwright, and screenwriter, Harvey Fierstein, best known for his theater work in Torch Song Trilogy and Hairspray, also paid tribute.

He wrote: 'Brilliant, kind, funny, actor, writer, painter Antony Sher is gone. I was honored to have him star in Torch Song Trilogy in London for which, along with his Richard lll, earned him the Olivier Award. Poorer us.'