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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 five-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.
He grew up in the suburb of Sea Point, where he attended Sea Point High School.
Sher moved to the United Kingdom in 1968 and auditioned 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.
Sher became a British citizen in 1979.
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 Guardians Rupert Smith, Sher revealed:
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.
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.
On 10 September 2021, it was announced that Sher was terminally ill and Doran took compassionate leave from the RSC to care for him. Sher died from cancer at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon on 2 December 2021, aged 72.
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.
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 John 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.
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.
Personal life, illness and death
In 2005, Sher and the director Gregory Doran, with whom he frequently collaborated professionally, entered into a civil partnership in the UK. They married on 30 December 2015, a little over ten years after the registration of their civil partnership.
Stage performances
Theatre
Filmography
Film
Militia man/Young man in café Morris Tasic Nathan Mr Alpert G.I. at cinema Bell Boy Oliver Shadey Loki David Samuels Genghis Cohn Richard III Ernest Zeigler The Don Chief Weasel Jack Sergeant Cuff Benjamin Disraeli Dr Moth Leontes, King of Sicilia Ben Azra (voice) Macbeth Adolf Hitler Chef Primo Levi Primo Levi Maurice Dr Hoenneger Thráin II (Extended Edition only) David
Television
Episodes: "Part 1: October 2nd 1972"
"Part 2: October 3rd 1972 (a.m.)"
"Part 3: October 3rd 1972 (p.m.)"
"Part 4: Gross Moral Turpitude"1 episode TV Movie Scum editor Acted without dialogue 1 episode Episodes: "Episode #1.5"
"Episode #1.6"
Awards and nominations
BAFTA TV Awards
0 win, 1 nomination
2008 Primo Best Actor
Laurence Olivier Awards
2 wins, 5 nominations
1983 King Lear Best Actor in a Supporting Role 1985 Richard III and Torch Song Trilogy Best Actor 1988 The Merchant of Venice and Hello and Goodbye Actor of the Year in a Revival 1997 Stanley Best Actor 2000 The Winter's Tale
Drama Desk Awards
1 win and 1 nomination
2006 Primo Outstanding One-Person Show "Primo"
Evening Standard Theatre Awards
1 win and 1 nomination
1985 Richard III Best Actor
Evening Standard British Film Awards
1 win and 1 nomination
1997 Mrs Brown Peter Sellers Award for Comedy
Screen Actors Guild Awards
1 win and 1 nomination
1997 Shakespeare in Love Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Theatre Awards UK (TMA)
1 win and 1 nomination
1997 Titus Andronicus Best Actor in a Play
Tony Awards
0 win and 1 nomination
1997 Stanley Best Actor in a Play
Honours
External links
Categories: 1949 Births, 2021 Deaths, 20th-century British Jews, 20th-century English Lgbtq People, 20th-century English Male Actors, 20th-century English Memoirists, 20th-century English Novelists, 21st-century British Jews, 21st-century English Dramatists And Playwrights, 21st-century English Lgbtq People, 21st-century English Male Actors, 21st-century English Memoirists, Actors Awarded Knighthoods, Alumni Of Sea Point High School, Alumni Of The Manchester School Of Theatre, Alumni Of The Webber Douglas Academy Of Dramatic Art, British Documentary Filmmakers, British Gay Writers, British Lgbtq Dramatists And Playwrights, British Lgbtq Novelists, British Lgbtq Screenwriters, British Male Dramatists And Playwrights, British Male Television Writers, British People Of South African-jewish Descent, Deaths From Cancer In England, Drama Desk Award Winners, English Gay Actors, English Male Film Actors, English Male Novelists, English Male Stage Actors, English Male Television Actors, English Male Voice Actors, English People Of Lithuanian-jewish Descent, English Television Writers, English Theatre Directors, Gay Jews, Gay Memoirists, Jewish British Male Actors, Laurence Olivier Award Winners, Male Actors From Cape Town, Naturalised Citizens Of The United Kingdom, Royal Shakespeare Company Members, South African Army Personnel, South African Emigrants To The United Kingdom, South African Lgbtq Dramatists And Playwrights, South African Male Actors, Theatre World Award Winners, Writers From Cape Town
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