Claire van Kampen, theater director and wife of actor Mark Rylance, has reportedly died after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 71.
Her daughter Juliet and Rylance said in a statement that she died “surrounded by family” in Kassel, Germany, on Rylance’s 65th birthday on Saturday, January 18.
“Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance, passed away this morning at 11:47 am in the old city of Kassel, Germany, surrounded by her family,” the statement read, according to multiple media outlets, including BBC News and the British newspaper. The Guardian.
The late composer and musical director was described by her family as “one of the funniest and most inspiring women we have ever known.” “We thank her for infusing our lives with her magic, music, laughter and love,” she added.
Bruce Glikas/Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
Camps depicted in New York. December 2017
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Claire had been diagnosed with cancer before her death, BBC News reported.
She was born in London and educated at the Royal College of Music where she studied piano and music theory. Claire embarked on a career in theater and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, where she became its first female musical director, according to the outlet..
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The following year, she joined the Royal National Theater, where she met Rylance while working as musical director for a play he appeared in, according to Sky News UK. Claire later became Artistic Director Rylance’s associate at the Globe Theater, where she worked for twenty years.
The couple married in 1989 and Rylance became stepfather to Claire’s two daughters whom they shared with her late ex-husband, Christopher van Kampen. Her youngest daughter Nataasha tragically died at the age of 28 after suffering a brain haemorrhage in 2012, according to Sky News.
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Rylance and Kampen pictured in November 2022
In recent years, Claire worked as a Globe associate and senior research fellow for early modern music at the Globe Theater and as a creative associate at the Old Vic Theater in London, BBC News reported.
Rylance said of his late wife in 2023, per The Guardian“Claire completely changed my life… She introduced me to the world of classical and modern music, and it was mainly around music that we fell in love.”
“Claire came to me with two children that I raised with her and Chris, but we never had children of our own, so to some extent our projects have been our children. They are incredible,” he continued, adding about his wife: she is “the rock of my life.”
PEOPLE has reached out to Rylance’s reps for comment.
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