Sir Ronald Harwood, CBE, FRSL 1934-2020

 _. Sir Ronald Harwood, CBE, FRSL, the playwright, has died aged 85.

He was born Ronald Horwitz, 9 November 1934, & was an author, playwright and screenwriter. He was most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser (for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

He married in 1959, Natasha Reihle [who died 2013], a descendant of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Catherine was Lady Harwood's great-great-great-great grandmother. 

Lady Harwood was born in London in 1938, the younger daughter of William Riehle by his wife Helene Bobrinsky (1914-96). Her maternal grandparents were Count Lev Bobrinsky (1878-1922), who died in a Soviet prison in 1922, by his wife Princess Vera Galitzine (1877-1967). 

Sir Ronald leaves a son, Antony (born 1960), and daughters, Deborah (born 1963), and Alexandra (born 1966). 

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