Anthony Page, Theatre and Film Director, Dies at 90

On Friday 11 September 2026, theatre and film director Anthony Page died aged 90 at Denville Hall, a residential care home for all in the performing arts industry. A charming, serious and modest man, Page’s talent for developing new writing and working with the greatest playwrights and actors gave him an extraordinary place in the canon of British theatre.

Born in 1935 in Bangalore, Page was the son of a Brigadier General in the British army. He read English at Oxford then trained as a director in New York under theatre teacher Sanford Meisner. Whilst he was there, he met Tony Richardson who then invited him to work at the Royal Court in London where from 1969 to 1972 he became joint Artistic Director with William Gaskell and Lindsay Anderson. He was invited to the US in 1973 to direct his first television show Pueblo which won 5 of its 7 Emmy Award nominations. Over the next 20 years, he directed another 37 films for cinema and television, working with a host of leading actors. Many of his films are classics today from Inadmissible Evidence in 1965 with Nicol Williamson to My Zinc Bed in 2008. He also directed three plays on Broadway: Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, and Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker.

Although he directed some classics, including Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession with Joan Plowright, in the theatre he became a much sought after director of new and contemporary writing, forming close relationships with writers including Samuel Beckett with whom he worked with on the first British revival of Waiting for Godot. Page was 30 and said of Beckett, 60: ‘He was full of humour. We enjoyed working on it with him’. Page also had a particularly close relationship with Edward Albee, directing 6 of his plays on Broadway, in the West End, the Almeida and The National Theatre.

The roll call of actors he worked with was extraordinary and included Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Joan Plowright, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellan, Richard Burton and Ralph Richardson to name but a few.

In his personal life, Page enjoyed a happy 40 year relationship with husband Kenneth Butler who succeeds him.

David Hare said, “Anthony Page was one of the pioneering theatre directors of his time. On George Devine’s death he took over the artistic directorship of The Royal Court Theatre and ensured its survival.

After outstanding stage productions of writers like Albee, Beckett and Osborne, he later mastered television drama, most especially to create an unforgettable Middlemarch. Great actors like Paul Scofield and Maggie Smith trusted him completely, because he was thoughtful, kind and sensitive. What a loss!”

Nica Burns said, “I had the privilege of producing three plays with Anthony in his later years when he directed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin at The Apollo, Long Day’s Journey into Night with David Suchet and Laurie Metcalfe at The Apollo and Design for Living with Tom Burke, Lisa Dillon and Andrew Scott at The Old Vic. He was the most delightful man with a towering intellect and an extraordinary ability with the text. I would have loved to have done more work with him. He was very happy in his private life – Anthony and Ken, his husband of 40 years, were a delightful, loving couple. He will be much missed.”

There will be a small, private cremation and a memorial next spring at St Paul’s, the Actors’ Church in Covent Garden.