 The twin brother of Anthony Shaffer, and also educated at St Paul's School, London, and Cambridge, Peter Shaffer had a West End hit with his first play, Five Finger Exercise (1958), a domestic drama subsequently and appallingly filmed in Hollywood (d. Daniel Mann, 1962). He is most famous now for that other drama of tormented family relations, Equus (1973), filmed in 1977 (d. Sidney Lumet, Oscar and BAFTA-nominated for best screenplay) in ways that diminished its flexibility about time and place, and for his examination of the genius of Mozart and the jealousy of Salieri in Amadeus (1979), flashily but popularly filmed in 1984 (US, d. Milos Forman, a BAFTA nomination and an Oscar for its screenplay). In fact, his theatre work has been invariably more dextrously exciting than the films made from it - see The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964, filmed 1969, d. Irving Lerner) and The Private Ear and The Public Eye, the 1962 double-bill filmed as, respectively, The Pad and How to Use It (US, d. Brian G.Hutton, 1966) and Follow Me (d. Carol Reed, 1972). He wrote novels with brother under name of Peter Anthony. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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