Editing Harold Pinter (section)

===Marriages and family life===
[[File:Harold Pinter's home, Worthing.jpg|thumb|right|Pinter's house in [[Worthing]], 1962–64]]
From 1956 until 1980, Pinter was married to [[Vivien Merchant]], an actress whom he met on tour,<ref name=Telegraphobit>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/3949227/Harold-Pinter-the-most-original-stylish-and-enigmatic-writer-in-the-post-war-revival-of-British-theatre.html |title=Harold Pinter: the most original, stylish and enigmatic writer in the post-war revival of British theatre |last=Staff |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |date=25 December 2008 |location=London |issn=0307-1235 |oclc=49632006 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110116050733/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/3949227/Harold-Pinter-the-most-original-stylish-and-enigmatic-writer-in-the-post-war-revival-of-British-theatre.html |archive-date=16 January 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref> perhaps best known for her performance in the 1966 film ''[[Alfie (1966 film)|Alfie]]''.  Their son Daniel was born in 1958.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 54 and 75.</ref>  Through the early 1970s, Merchant appeared in many of Pinter's works, including ''[[The Homecoming]]'' on stage (1965) and screen (1973), but the marriage was turbulent.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 252–56.</ref> For seven years, from 1962 to 1969, Pinter was engaged in a clandestine affair with BBC-TV presenter and journalist [[Joan Bakewell]], which inspired his 1978 play ''[[Betrayal (play)|Betrayal]]'',<ref name="Billington, pp. 257">Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 257–67.</ref> and also throughout that period and beyond he had an affair with an American socialite, whom he nicknamed "Cleopatra". This relationship was another secret he kept from both his wife and Bakewell.<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 86.</ref>  Initially, ''Betrayal'' was thought to be a response to his later affair with historian [[Antonia Fraser]], the wife of [[Hugh Fraser (British politician)|Hugh Fraser]], and Pinter's "marital crack-up".<ref name="Billington, p. 257">Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 257.</ref>

Pinter and Merchant had both met Antonia Fraser in 1969, when all three worked together on a [[National Gallery (London)|National Gallery]] programme about [[Mary, Queen of Scots]]; several years later, on 8–9 January 1975, Pinter and Fraser became romantically involved.<ref name=Fraserone>Fraser, Chap. 1: "First Night", ''Must You Go?'' 3–19.</ref>  That meeting initiated their five-year extramarital love affair.<ref>Fraser, chap. 1: "First Night"; chap. 2: "Pleasure and a Good Deal of Pain"; chap. 8: "It Is Here"; and chap. 13: "Marriage — Again", ''Must You Go?'' 3–33, 113–24, and 188–201.</ref><ref name=Bill252>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 252–53.</ref> After hiding the relationship from Merchant for two and a half months, on 21 March 1975, Pinter finally told her "I've met somebody".<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 13.</ref>  After that, "Life in Hanover Terrace gradually became impossible", and Pinter moved out of their house on 28 April 1975, five days after the première of ''[[No Man's Land (play)|No Man's Land]]''.<ref name=Billington253>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 253–55.</ref><ref name=People>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917680-1,00.html |title=People |last=Staff |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |publisher=Time Inc. |date=11 August 1975 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520231356/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917680-1,00.html |archive-date=20 May 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In mid-August 1977, after Pinter and Fraser had spent two years living in borrowed and rented quarters, they moved into her former family home in [[Holland Park]],<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 29, 65–78, and 83.</ref> where Pinter began writing ''Betrayal''.<ref name="Billington, p. 257"/>  He reworked it later, while on holiday at the [[Grand Hotel Eastbourne|Grand Hotel]] in [[Eastbourne]], in early January 1978.<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 85–88.</ref>  After the Frasers' divorce had become final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980, Pinter married Fraser on 27 November 1980.<ref>Fraser, "''27 November — The Diary of Lady Antonia Pinter''", ''Must You Go?'' 122–23.</ref>  Because of a two-week delay in Merchant's signing the divorce papers, however, the reception had to precede the actual ceremony, originally scheduled to occur on his 50th birthday.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 271–76.</ref>  Vivien Merchant died of acute alcoholism in the first week of October 1982, at the age of 53.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter''  276.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/07/arts/death-of-vivien-merchant-is-ascribed-to-alcoholism.html |title=Death of Vivien Merchant Is Ascribed to Alcoholism |last=Staff |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=7 October 1982 |location=New York City |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100121083451/http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/07/arts/death-of-vivien-merchant-is-ascribed-to-alcoholism.html |archive-date=21 January 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Billington writes that Pinter "did everything possible to support" her and regretted that he ultimately became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation, Pinter's remarriage, and Merchant's death.<ref>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 276 and 345–47.</ref>

A reclusive gifted musician and writer, Daniel changed his surname from Pinter to Brand, the maiden name of his maternal grandmother,<ref name="Bill255"/> before Pinter and Fraser became romantically involved; while according to Fraser, his father could not understand it, she says that she could: "Pinter is such a distinctive name that he must have got tired of being asked, 'Any relation?{{'"}}<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 44.</ref>  Michael Billington wrote that Pinter saw Daniel's name change as "a largely pragmatic move on Daniel's part designed to keep the press&nbsp;... at bay."<ref name=Bill254>Billington 254–55; cf. 345.</ref>  Fraser told Billington that Daniel "was very nice to me at a time when it would have been only too easy for him to have turned on me&nbsp;... simply because he had been the sole focus of his father's love and now manifestly wasn't."<ref name=Bill254/>  Still unreconciled at the time of his father's death, Daniel Brand did not attend Pinter's funeral.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/sarah-sands/sarah-sands-pinters-funeral-ndash-more-final-reckoning-than-reconciliation-1224214.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220509/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/sarah-sands/sarah-sands-pinters-funeral-ndash-more-final-reckoning-than-reconciliation-1224214.html |archive-date=9 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Pinter's funeral – more final reckoning than reconciliation |last=Sands |first=Sarah |newspaper=The Independent |date=4 January 2009 |access-date=24 April 2020}}</ref>

Billington observes that "The break-up with Vivien and the new life with Antonia was to have a profound effect on Pinter's personality and his work," though he adds that Fraser herself did not claim to have influence over Pinter or his writing.<ref name=Bill255>Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 255.</ref> In her own contemporaneous diary entry dated 15 January 1993, Fraser described herself more as Pinter's  literary midwife.<ref>Fraser, ''Must You Go?'' 211: "With all my timings [of ''Moonlight''], Harold calls me his editor.  Not so.  I was the midwife saying, 'Push, Harold, push,' but the act of creation took place elsewhere and the baby would have been born anyway."</ref> Indeed, she told Billington that "other people [such as [[Peggy Ashcroft]], among others] had a shaping influence on [Pinter's] politics" and attributed changes in his writing and political views to a change from "an unhappy, complicated personal life&nbsp;... to a happy, uncomplicated personal life", so that "a side of Harold which had always been there was somehow released.  I think you can see that in his work after ''[[No Man's Land (play)|No Man's Land]]'' [1975], which was a very bleak play."<ref name=Bill255/>

Pinter was content in his second marriage and enjoyed family life with his six adult stepchildren and 17 step-grandchildren.<ref name=BillingtonHPDD>See Billington, ''Harold Pinter'' 388, 429–30.</ref> Even after battling cancer for several years, he considered himself "a very lucky man in every respect".<ref name=Lucky>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4780000/newsid_4785400/nb_rm_4785475.stm |title=Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review |last=Wark |first=Kirsty |work=[[Newsnight Review|Newsnight]] |publisher=BBC |date=23 June 2006 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121112034535/http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_4780000/newsid_4785400/nb_rm_4785475.stm |archive-date=12 November 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>  [[Sarah Lyall]] notes in her 2007 interview with Pinter in ''[[The New York Times]]'' that his "latest work, a slim pamphlet called 'Six Poems for A.', comprises poems written over 32 years, with "A" of course being Lady Antonia. The first of the poems was written in Paris, where she and Mr. Pinter traveled soon after they met. More than three decades later the two are rarely apart, and Mr. Pinter turns soft, even cozy, when he talks about his wife."<ref name=Lyall/> In that interview Pinter "acknowledged that his plays—full of infidelity, cruelty, inhumanity, the lot—seem at odds with his domestic contentment. 'How can you write a happy play?' he said. 'Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life.{{' "}}<ref name=Lyall/>  After his death, Fraser told ''[[The Guardian]]'': "He was a great man, and it was a privilege to live with him for over 33 years. He will never be forgotten."<ref name="Siddique">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/dec/25/harold-pinter-dies |title=Nobel prize winning dramatist Harold Pinter dies |first=Haroon |last=Siddique |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=25 December 2008 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905141709/http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/25/harold-pinter-dies |archive-date=5 September 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2008/dec/26/harold-pinter-death-tributes |title=Multi-award winning playwright lauded by dignitaries of theatrical and political worlds |first1=Peter |last1=Walker |first2=David |last2=Smith |first3=Haroon |last3=Siddique |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=26 December 2008 |publisher=[[Guardian Media Group|GMG]] |location=London |issn=0261-3077 |oclc=60623878 |access-date=26 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111163934/http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/dec/26/harold-pinter-death-tributes |archive-date=11 January 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref>