Mark Rylance Announces Wife, Claire van Kampen, Died on Her Birthday
Mark Rylance mourns his wife, Claire van Kampenwho died of cancer aged 71 on Saturday, January 18 – his 65th birthday.
“Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance, died this morning, Saturday 18 January at 11:47, in the ancient city of Kassel, Germany, surrounded by her family,” Rylance and their daughter Juliet said in a statement.
“Claire died of cancer on Mark Rylance’s 65th birthday. Her youngest daughter who died in 2012, she is survived by her eldest daughter, Juliet Rylance, her two husbands, and many dear friends in England and America.”
Claire – a British theater director and composer who became the first female musical director at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater – has been described by her family as “one of the funniest and most inspiring women we have ever known.”
“We thank him for filling our lives with his magic, music, laughter and love,” they added.
Rylance married Claire in December 1989, becoming her children’s stepfather and ex-husband. Chris van Kampen: Juliet, 45, and Nataasha, who died suddenly in 2012 aged 28 after suffering a brain haemorrhage on a flight from New York to London.
“It is an unknown thing when something painful like this happens to you. You see it has happened to many people. “You make your own decisions about how you deal with it,” said Rylance The Sunday Times in 2016.
After Natasha’s death, Rylance went on to be nominated for an Emmy and won a BAFTA for his role as Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s advisor and grieving father and widower, in the TV series. Wolf Hall. He also won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2015 for his role Steven Spielberg‘s Bridge of spies.
Claire was diagnosed with cancer before she passed away. Born in London in 1953, he eventually trained at the Royal College of Music, studying piano and music theory, according to. BBC News. He then began a career in theatre, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986 and, a year later, the Royal National Theater where he met Rylance. He later became Rylance’s artistic partner at the Globe Theatre, where he worked for 20 years.
He composed original scores for Broadway productions incl True West, Boeing-Boeing again This Beteand translations of Shakespeare Twelfth night again Richard III.
“Claire completely changed my life … She brought me into that world of classical and modern music, and it was very musical when we fell in love,” Rylance said of Claire in 2023, according to The guard.
“Claire came to me with two children that I raised with Chris, but we never had children of our own, so, to a certain extent, our careers were our children. They are amazing,” he continued, adding that Claire was “the rock of my life.”
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