Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, CBE (born as Tomáš Straussler on July 3, 1937) is a British Academy Award winning screenwriter and Tony Award winning playwright. Born in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, he is famous for plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Rock 'N' Roll, and also for co-writing screenplays for Brazil and Shakespeare in Love. In 2008 he received the Dan David prize for "Creative Rendering of the Past". Stoppard was born on July 3, 1937 in Zlín, Czechoslovakia and moved to Singapore with other Jews on March 15, 1939, the day the Nazis invaded. In 1941, the family was evacuated to Darjeeling, India, to escape the Japan invasion of Singapore. His father, Eugene Straussler, remained behind as a British army volunteer, and died in a Japanese prison camp after capture. In India, Stoppard received an English education at the Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling. In late 1945, his mother Martha married a British army major named Kenneth Stoppard, who... full article at wikipedia