Wife of Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance dies on his birthday after cancer battle

Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance has tragically lost his wife of 36 years on his 65th birthday after she was diagnosed with cancer.

Sir Mark Rylance’s wife Claire Van Kampen has died aged 71.

She passed away on Saturday in Kassel, Germany on her husband’s 65th birthday surrounded by family, after being diagnosed with cancer.

Van Kampen was a concert pianist, composer, playwright, theatre director and worked in various roles at Shakespeare’s Globe for around 20 years.

She was also described as “one of the funniest and (most) inspiring women we have ever known”, in a statement from Rylance and Van Kampen’s daughter Juliet.

“We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love.

“Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.”

Mark Rylance and wife Claire van Kampen pictured in 2022. Picture: Jerod Harris/Getty Images)

Her theatre credits include composing the music for the 1989 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet starring Rylance, whom she married that same year.

Later in her career she created original scores for Broadway productions of 2000s True West, 2008’s Boeing-Boeing and 2010 comedy La Bete, as well as adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Richard III.

Van Kampen also wrote the play Farinelli And The King which saw Rylance star as King Philippe V of Spain and was nominated for several Olivier Awards including best new play, and a number of Tony Awards.

The director and composer trained at the Royal College of Music in London where she studied music theory and piano, specialising in the performance of 20th century music.

She went on to have a career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theatre, radio, television and film soundtracks and the concert hall.

In 1986, she began her theatre career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with the Royal National Theatre the following year.

The couple married in 1989. Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

She served as artistic associate at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1996 to 2006 when Rylance was the artistic director.

Van Kampen later acted as a musical consultant and resident composer to the subsequent artistic director Dominic Dromgoole from 2007 to 2015.

She was also a creative associate of the prestigious Old Vic theatre in London.

Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters Juliet and Nataasha.

Her youngest daughter Nataasha, a filmmaker, died aged 28 in 2012 after suffering a brain haemorrhage.

Rylance alongside fellow 2016 Oscar winners, Brie Larson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Alicia Vikander. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Rylance, who won Best Supporting Actor at the 2016 Oscars for Bridge Of Spies, told the Guardian in 2023: “Claire completely changed my life. We met at the National Theatre when she was musical director of a play I was in.

“She introduced me to that world of classical and modern music, and it was very much around music that we fell in love.

“From the beginning, we were always imagining stories that we could tell together. I’ve lost count of how many projects we’ve imagined, sitting there at our kitchen table.”

Rylance and Van Kampen were pictured at Wimbledon in July last year, weeks after the actor began shooting Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light.

In June 2022, Rylance tragically announced his younger brother Jonathan ‘Jonno’ Waters had died after a cycling accident.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Wife of Oscar-winning actor Sir Mark Rylance dies on his birthday after cancer battle