SIR Mark Rylance’s wife Claire Van Kampen has died aged 71.
She died on Saturday in Kassel, Germany, on her husband’s 65th birthday, surrounded by her family, after being diagnosed with cancer.
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Claire Van Kampen and Sir Mark Rylance attended the Old Vic Bicentenary Ball to celebrate the theater’s 200th birthday in 2018. Credit: Getty
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Sir Mark and Claire with her daughter JulietCredit: AFP – Getty
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Sir Mark and Claire van Kampen attend the press dinner after party for ‘Against’ at the Almeida Theater in 2017 Credit: Getty
Claire was a concert pianist, composer, playwright and theater director.
Van Kampen was a concert pianist, composer, playwright, theater director and worked in various roles at Shakespeare’s Globe for around 20 years.
She was also described as “one of the funniest and (most) inspiring women we’ve ever met”, in a statement from Sir Mark and Claire’s daughter Juliet.
It added: “We thank her for infusing our lives with her magic, music, laughter and love.
“The bells are ringing, the dreamers are trumpeting, something is done, something is starting. One of the great sages has passed away.”
Her theater credits include composing the score for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1989 production of Hamlet starring Sir Mark, whom she married the same year.
Later in her career, she created original scores for the Broadway productions of True West in 2000, Boeing-Boeing in 2008 and the comedy La Bete in 2010, as well as adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Richard III.
Van Kampen also wrote the play Farinelli and the King in which Sir Mark played King Philippe V of Spain and was nominated for several Olivier Awards, including Best New Play, and numerous Tony Awards.
The director and composer was educated at the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied music theory and piano, specializing in the performance of 20th century music.
She continued her career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theater, radio, television and film music, as well as for the concert hall.
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In 1986, she began her theater career at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the following year at the Royal National Theatre.
She worked as an artistic associate at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1996 to 2006 when Sir Mark was artistic director.
Van Kampen later acted as musical advisor and composer-in-residence to later artistic director Dominic Dromgoole from 2007 to 2015.
She was also a creative associate of the prestigious Old Vic theater in London.
Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters, Juliet and Natasha.
Her youngest daughter Nataasha, a director, died aged 28 in 2012 after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
Rylance told the Guardian in 2023: “Claire has completely changed my life. We met at the National Theater when she was the musical director of the play in which I played.
“She introduced me to that world of classical and modern music and we fell in love with music.”
He added: “From the beginning, we always imagined the stories we could tell together. I lost count of how many projects we came up with, sitting there at the kitchen table.”
Sir Mark and Claire were pictured in Wimbledon last July, weeks after the actor began filming Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.
Who is Sir Mark Rylance?
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor born on January 18, 1960 in Kent.
In addition to being an actor, he is also a playwright and theater director.
Rylance has had an extremely successful career on both stage and screen.
He became the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in 1995 and remained in that position for 10 years.
He has won numerous awards including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2016 for Bridge of Spies.
Rylance married director, composer and playwright Claire van Kampen after they met in 1987 while working on a National Theater production of The Wandering Jew.
They were married in Oxfordshire on December 21, 1989.
The actor became a stepfather to two daughters from a previous marriage.
In 2017, the late Queen knighted him.
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Source: HIS Education