Peter Shaffer

Born May 15, 1926, in Liverpool, Peter Levin Shaffer had a twin brother,  Anthony Shaffer , also destined to succeed on the stage. After working in a mine like other young people to supply the army during World War II,  Peter Shaffer  graduated in History at Cambridge, an institution where he directed the magazine “Granta” together with Anthony. He worked in a New York public library until he achieved enormous success in 1958 with his work “Exercise for Five Fingers.”

In 1973 he was a hit in London and New York with  Equus , made into a film by  Sidney Lumet , with  Richard Burton  as the lead, four years later. In 1979 he premiered  Amadeus , about the supposed rivalry between Antonio Salieri and Mozart. He himself took care of the script adapted for the famous film directed by  Milos Forman  in 1984, a task for which he won one of the eight Oscars with which he was recognized.

“All creation is an autobiographical act,” he once declared. Perhaps that is why he lets us note that his twin brother had an enormous weight in his life in all his works, almost always around the rivalry between two characters, like the composers of  Amadeus , or the psychoanalyst and the patient. from  Equus . The same occurs in the case of Anthony, because in his most recognized text,  The Footprint ,  adapted for film by  Joseph L. Mankiewicz , a writer and his wife’s lover engage in a duel of wits. The author was survived by another brother (Anthony passed away in 2001) and four nephews.