(Photo: Getty Images)
Tributes are being paid to prolific stage and screen actor Sir Antony Sher (pictured above right), who has died at age 72. 
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), with which Sher had a lengthy and incredibly successful professional association, announced the sad news on Twitter earlier today (December 3). 
"Anthony was deeply loved and hugely admired by so many colleagues," the RSC said in its statement. "He was a groundbreaking role model for many young actors, and it is impossible to comprehend that he is no longer with us. We will ensure friends far and wide have the chance to share tributes and memories in the days to come."
Sher's husband Sir Gregory Doran (pictured above left, with Sher) is the RSC's Artistic Director. It was announced in September that he would be going on compassionate leave to care for Sher, who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. In 2005, Sher and Doran became one of the first gay couples in the U.K. to enter into a civil partnership. They then married in 2015, a year after same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.K.
Sher was best known for his stage work, for which he won two Olivier Awards, the top honor in British theater. However, he also made fairly frequent film and TV appearances over the years. Perhaps most notably, he portrayed Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli opposite Dame Judi Dench as Queen Victoria in the 1997 biopic Mrs. Brown. The following year, he appeared as Dr. Moth in the Oscar-winning rom-com Shakespeare in Love.
In 2008, Sher received a BAFTA nomination for his performance in Primo, a televised taping of a play about a man recalling his time at Auschwitz.
Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein is among those who have paid tribute to Sher, who starred in the London production of his play Torch Song Trilogy. On Twitter, Fierstein described the late actor as "brilliant, kind, [and] funny."

(Photo: Twitter)
Rest in peace, Sir Anthony Sher, and thank you for your contribution.