Peter Shaffer screenplay for "Equus", he was nominated for the 1977 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar but the award went to Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay for "Julia". For writing the screenplay for "Amadeus", Shaffer received both the 1984 Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the 1984 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Shaffer was homosexual but did not write explicitly about it. His boyfriend Robert Leonard died in 1990. Shaffer died on June 6, 2016, at the age of ninety while on a trip to the south-west of Ireland. He co-wrote three detective novels with his brother Anthony Shaffer under the pseudonym "Peter Antony".
Anthony Shaffer (writer) notable work was the play "Sleuth" (1970), which he adapted for the film version which starred Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, and was Oscar nominated. He received Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America for both versions: for Best Play in 1971, and Best Screenplay in 1973. His other major screenplays include the Hitchcock thriller "Frenzy" (1972) and the British cult thriller "The Wicker Man" (1973) with whose director, Robin Hardy, Shaffer had previously set up a television production company Hardy, Shaffer & Associates. Shaffer was married three times—to Henrietta Glaskie, Carolyn Soley (with whom he had two children,