Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Sträussler), Academy Award winner, 3x Laurence Olivier winner and 5x Tony award-winning Czech-English playwright has died aged 88.

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Stoppard was born Tomáš Sträussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia. On 15 March 1939, the day the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, the Sträussler family fled to Singapore.

In 1941, when Tomáš was five, he, his brother Petr, and their mother had been evacuated to Darjeeling, India. The boys attended Mount Hermon School, an American multi-racial school, where the brothers became Peter and Tom. He left school at 17 and pursued a career in journalism.

Stoppard's first play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) is the story of Hamlet told from the POV of two minor characters. This play gave Stoppard his first Tony.

He wrote a pleth

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