Benjamin Schwartz in The American Conservative:
Stoppard was the most glittering figure in Britain’s intellectual and high-cultural life for the past six decades. In a country that still dominates world theater, he was at the time of his death indisputably Britain’s greatest dramatist. Equally indisputably, he was also its most—really its only—glamorous one. In suitably Byronic fashion, he awoke the morning after the premiere of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Edinburgh Festival in 1966 to find himself famous. (To a reporter who asked what the play was “about,” the 29-year-old Stoppard replied, “It’s about to make me very rich.”) His dashing looks, playful wit, and easy charm made him an intellectual rock star, a position bolstered by his long-standing and devoted friendships with genuine rock stars, most famously Mick Jagger (Jagger was one of only three speakers at July’s tribute), and with a staggering range of celebrities, from Vaclav Havel to Harrison Ford to the Duchess of Devonshire.
More here.
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