Two-Time Olivier Award Winner Antony Sher Dies at 72

Stage and screen star Antony Sher has died at the age of 72. In September, his husband, collaborator and Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Gregory Doran announced he would take a period of compassionate leave to care for Sher, who was diagnosed with cancer.

"Our hearts go out to Greg today, as on behalf of all RSC Board members, past and present, we express our deep sadness, affection and condolences to him and other members of Antony’s family," RSC Chair Shriti Vadera said in a statement. "Antony was beloved in the RSC and touched and enriched the lives of so many people."

Born on June 14, 1949 in Cape Town, South Africa, Sher went on to study at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1969 to 1971. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982, going on to take on titanic roles, including Richard III, King Lear as well as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, just to name a few.

Sher received an Olivier Award in 1985 for his performance in Torch Song Trilogy and another in 1987 for his performance as the British painter Stanley Spencer in Stanley. On Broadway, Sher was nominated for a Tony Award in 1997 for his Broadway debut in Stanley. He won the Drama Desk Award in 2006 for his solo performance in Primo, Sher's stage adaptation of If This Is A Man by Primo Levi. Primo was adapted into a film in 2005.

Sher's screen credits include Shakespeare in Love, Superman II, Shadey, Erik the Viking, The Wind in the Willows, Mrs. Brown, The History Man, The Jury, Home, God on Trial and more.

Knighted for services to both acting and writing in 2000, his theater journals include Year of the King, Woza Shakespeare! (co-written with Gregory Doran), Year of the Fat Knight and Year of the Mad King. His novels include Middlepost and Cheap Lives. He released paintings and drawings in Characters in 1990 and published his autobiography Beside Myself in 2002.