SIR Mark Rylance’s wife Claire Van Kampen has died aged 71.
She passed away on Saturday in Kassel, Germany, on what is her husband’s 65th birthday surrounded by her family, after being diagnosed with cancer.
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Claire was a concert pianist, composer, playwright and theatre director.
Van Kampen was a concert pianist, composer, playwright, theatre 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 have ever known”, in a statement from Sir Mark and Claire’s daughter Juliet.
It added: “We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love.
“Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.”
Her theatre credits include composing the music for the 1989 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet starring Sir Mark, whom she married that same year.
Later in her career she created original scores for Broadway productions of 2000’s True West, 2008’s Boeing-Boeing and 2010 comedy La Bete, as well as adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Richard III.
Van Kampen also wrote the play Farinelli And The King which saw Sir Mark star as King Philippe V of Spain and was nominated for several Olivier Awards including best new play, and a number of Tony Awards.
The director and composer trained at the Royal College of Music in London where she studied music theory and piano, specialising in the performance of 20th century music.
She went on to have a career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theatre, radio, television and film soundtracks and the concert hall.
Wolf Hall Season 1 trailer starring Damian Lewis, Mark Gatiss and Claire Foy
In 1986, she began her theatre career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with the Royal National Theatre the following year.
She served as artistic associate at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1996 to 2006 when Sir Mark was the artistic director.
Van Kampen later acted as a musical consultant and resident composer to the subsequent artistic director Dominic Dromgoole from 2007 to 2015.
She was also a creative associate of the prestigious Old Vic theatre in London.
Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters Juliet and Nataasha.
Her youngest daughter Nataasha, a filmmaker, died aged 28 in 2012 after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
Rylance told the Guardian in 2023: “Claire completely changed my life. We met at the National Theatre when she was musical director of a play I was in.
“She introduced me to that world of classical and modern music, and it was very much around music that we fell in love.”
He added: “From the beginning, we were always imagining stories that we could tell together. I’ve lost count of how many projects we’ve imagined, sitting there at our kitchen table.”
Sir Mark and Claire were pictured at Wimbledon in July last year, weeks after the actor began shooting Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.
Who is Sir Mark Rylance?
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor who was born on January 18, 1960, in Kent.
As well as an actor he is a playwright and theatre director.
Rylance has had a hugely successful career both on stage and screen.
He became the first artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in 1995 and stayed in the post for 10 years.
He has won numerous awards including a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2016 for Bridge Of Spies.
Rylance married to director, composer and playwright Claire van Kampen after meeting in 1987 while working on a production of The Wandering Jew at the National Theatre.
They tied the knot in Oxfordshire on December 21, 1989.
The actor became a stepfather to her two daughters from a previous marriage.
In 2017 he was made a knight by the late Queen.
