Peter Shaffer story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and court composer Antonio Salieri who, overcome with jealousy at hearing the "voice of God" coming from an "obscene child", sets out to destroy his rival. When the show moved to Broadway it won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play and, like "Equus", ran for more than a thousand performances. After the success of "Amadeus", Shaffer wrote the play "Lettice and Lovage" specifically for Dame Maggie Smith in 1986, for which he was nominated for another Tony Award and Dame Maggie Smith eventually won the Tony Award for best actress after three nominations in
Peter Firth Alan Strang. His first major role as an adult was the title part in a BBC Television "Play of the Month" adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1976). The script was based on a stage adaptation by John Osborne, and also starred Jeremy Brett and John Gielgud. That same year saw the release of the World War I film "Aces High" which featured Firth as the inexperienced RFC pilot Lt. Stephen Croft. Firth played the lead role in the film adaptation of Henry Fielding's "Joseph Andrews" (1977). That same year he starred with Richard Burton in