On this 11th episode of Media Mayhem, Allison sits with author, playwright and Academy Award winning screenwriter Sir Ronald Harwood. Allison and Sir Ronald discuss the story behind his first hit play, “The Dresser,” as well as his work for the big screen since winning the Oscar for “Best Adapted Screenplay” for “The Pianist.” Towards the end of the hour, Sir Ronald talks about his third collaboration with Roman Polanski and his personal relationship with the director.

Sir Ronald also weighs in on the current state of journalism, the fall-out from the Murdoch phone hacking scandal, and his loyalty to Israel and his feelings about the country’s political leaders.

He also expounds on the process of adapting plays to screenplays and the difference between working in theater and film, gives his take on the British class system and tells a riveting tale of what it was like to be knighted by Prince Charles.

Sir Ronald Harwood is an author, playwright and Academy Award winning screenwriter who was a recipient of the Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 for his services to drama. He was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, and moved to London at the age of 17 to pursue a career in the theater. When he was 25 and unemployed, he received a typewriter as a gift and wrote his first novel, All The Same Shadows.

Sir Ronald hasn’t stopped writing since that pivotal moment. He has worked steadily in the theater, writing the acclaimed play “The Dresser” in 1980. The play, based on Sir Ronald’s own experience as a dresser to the British actor Sir Donald Wolfit, was a sensation on the stage and was subsequently made into a film starring Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. The film received a total of five Academy Award nominations, including a best adapted screenplay nomination for Sir Ronald.

In 2003 he won the Academy Award for “Best Adapted screeplay” for “The Pianist,” and was nominated again in the same category for “The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.”

He is also a prolific playwright who is the author of “Taking Sides,” which is based on the life of Wilhelm Furtwangler, the controversial conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic during the Nazi era, who was prosecuted after the war on charges of being a Nazi sympathizer. His most recent play, “Collaboration,” is about the conduct of composer Richard Strauss during the Third Reich.

Filming is currently underway on a movie version of his hit play “Quartet.” The movie which marks Dustin Hoffman’s directorial debut, stars Dame Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Billy Connelly and Tom Courtenay.