John Osborne John Osborne John James Osborne (Fulham, London, 12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his excoriating prose and intense critical stance towards established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play "Look Back in Anger" transformed English theatre. In a productive life of more than 40 years, Osborne explored many themes and genres, writing for stage, film and TV. His personal life was extravagant and iconoclastic. He was notorious for the ornate violence of his language, not only on behalf of the political causes he supported but also against
John Osborne he drifted to the libertarian, unorganized right, considering himself "a radical who hates change". Osborne had many affairs over the course of his life and frequently mistreated his wives and lovers. He was married five times, with all except his final marriage being unhappy unions. His wives and lovers were not always kept apart, either. In his 2006 biography, John Heilpern describes at length a holiday in Valbonne, France, in 1961, that Osborne shared with Tony Richardson, a distraught George Devine, and others. Feigning bafflement over the romantic entanglements of the time, Heilpern writes: In Volume 1 of his autobiography