Famous Czechs.

7 PROFILES

7 celebrated Czech figures including actors, musicians, writers, scientists, athletes, and cultural stars across Czech history.

Editor’s spotlight — updated daily

Tom Stoppard

Czech Republic

Tom Stoppard won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Shakespeare in Love in 1998. He also earned four Tony Awards for Best Play, including for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1968 and The Coast of Utopia in 2007. Born Tomáš Sträussler in 1937 in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, he fled the Nazis and later became a British knight. Stoppard died in 2025 at age 88.

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