Anthony Page, the influential theatre and film director known for his leadership at the Royal Court and his Broadway productions, has died aged 90. His death at Denville Hall marks the loss of a key figure in British theatre with a career spanning five decades.

Anthony Page passed away on Friday 11 September 2026 at Denville Hall, the retirement home for actors. Born in Bangalore in 1935, he studied English at Oxford before training as a director in New York under Sanford Meisner.

While in New York, Page met Tony Richardson, who invited him to join the Royal Court Theatre in London. Between 1969 and 1972, Page served as joint artistic director of the Royal Court alongside William Gaskell and Lindsay Anderson, helping to steer the theatre through a crucial period.

Page’s directing career bridged theatre, television, and film. In 1973 he directed the television production Pueblo in the US, which won five Emmy Awards. Over the next two decades, he directed 37 films for cinema and television, including Inadmissible Evidence with Nicol Williamson and My Zinc Bed.

On Broadway, Page directed three significant plays: Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House, and Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. In the UK, he directed classics like Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession with Joan Plowright, as well as new writing and revivals.

Page forged close working relationships with playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee, directing the first British revival of Waiting for Godot and six of Albee’s plays in London and on Broadway. His collaborators included actors Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen, and Ralph Richardson.

Playwright David Hare remembered Page as a pioneering theatre director who ensured the Royal Court’s survival after George Devine’s death and later excelled in television drama, highlighting productions like Middlemarch. Hare praised Page’s kindness, thoughtfulness, and the trust he earned from actors such as Paul Scofield and Maggie Smith.

Producer Nica Burns recalled working with Page in his later years on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Apollo, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Design for Living at The Old Vic. She noted his towering intellect, extraordinary textual insight, and his happy private life with his husband of 40 years, Kenneth Butler.

A small, private cremation has taken place, with a memorial planned for next spring at St Paul’s, the Actors’ Church in Covent Garden. Page’s death marks the passing of a director who shaped modern British theatre while bridging to international stages and television.