Robert Bolt

Robert Bolt (1924 to 1995) was an English playwright and screenwriter whose scripts shaped some of the best known British and international films of the 1960s and 1980s. Born in Sale, Cheshire, he taught history and English at Millfield School and became a full-time writer in 1958, after his stage play The Flowering Cherry reached London. His play A Man for All Seasons began as a BBC radio play in 1954, reached the stage in 1960 and was filmed in 1966. For the screen he wrote Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and, as his last film project, The Mission, and late in life he wrote a television film about the press secretary James Brady. Doctor Zhivago and A Man for All Seasons each won him the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. His scripts repeatedly place a principled or restless individual in tension with the society around him.