He then served as an Army officer in West Africa until 1947, when he returned to the University of Manchester and spent three years completing his honours degree in history.

[3] For many years he taught in the English and History departments at Millfield School and only became a full-time writer at the age of 33 when his play The Flowering Cherry was staged in London in 1958, with Celia Johnson and Ralph Richardson.

Later in Doctor Zhivago, Bolt invested Boris Pasternak's novel with his own characteristic sense of narrative and dialogue – human, short and telling.

[8] Robert Bolt was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1972 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.

His work for director David Lean garnered him particular acclaim and recognition, and Bolt tried his hand at directing with the unsuccessful Lady Caroline Lamb (1972).

While some criticised Bolt for focusing more on the personal aspects of his protagonists than the broader political context (particularly with Lawrence of Arabia and A Man for All Seasons), most critics and audiences alike praised his screenplays.

Bolt also had several unrealised projects, including a TV miniseries adaptation of Gore Vidal's novel Burr; a film adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time for Norman Lear;[11] a script inspired by the Patty Hearst kidnapping called The Cover-Up with Oliver Stone;[12] a script about Irish patriot Michael Collins called Blest Souls with Michael Cimino; original screenplays about Galileo Galilei and explorers Scott and Amundsen;[7] a film adaptation of André Malraux's novel Man's Fate also with Cimino;[13] and a script about the life of Siddhartha called Buddha for Ron Fricke.

[14][15] Additionally, Bolt was briefly attached as writer for Gandhi and David Lean's unmade film version of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, before he was replaced on both.