Sam Wanamaker
Actor. Director. Visionary. The fascinating life of Sam Wanamaker is explored for the first time in this biography by Diana Devlin, who worked closely with Wanamaker during the last twenty years of his life.
Sam Wanamaker (1909 - 1993) is best known as the man who spent the last twenty-five years of his life campaigning to reconstruct Shakespeare’s Globe near its original site in London.
Born in the USA, he trained as an actor in Chicago and began his career during the golden age of radio drama, before moving on to Broadway. A vocal left wing activist, Wanamaker moved to the UK during the turbulent era of the anti-Communist witch hunts. Having crossed the Atlantic, he carved a successful international career as actor, producer and director. He directed the opening production at the Sydney Opera House.
With his staunch sense of purpose, he made as many enemies as friends: charismatic and persuasive, he was also stubborn and domineering. But above all, he was a man of great vision, and it was that vision that inspired many to help make his dream of Shakespeare’s Globe come into being, which opened to much fanfare in 1997
Diana Devlin has written on theatre history and drama, and taught theatre and drama in colleges and universities in England and the USA, including more than twenty years as Head of Drama Studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, which she retired from in 2015. For over forty years she has been closely associated with Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside, London, and is Deputy Chair of its Council.