Harold Pinter, Britain's leading playwright, had a seven-year affair with Joan Bakewell, the television presenter, during his tempestuous marriage to the actress Vivien Merchant.

A biography due to be published by Faber and Faber in November will reveal that Pinter's play Betrayal was influenced by his relationship with Miss Bakewell, which lasted from 1962 to 1969. It had been assumed that the 1978 play was based on a later liaison, starting in 1975, with the biographer, Lady Antonia Fraser, daughter of Lord Longford and then the wife of a Tory MP. Pinter left Miss Merchant for her and she ...

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