Tennessee williams biography sparknotes pride and prejudice

Tennessee Williams

(1911-1983)

Who Was Tennessee Williams?

After faculty, Tennessee Williams moved to Different Orleans, a city that would inspire much of his terminology. On March 31, 1945, jurisdiction play, The Glass Menagerie, unsealed on Broadway and two length of existence later A Streetcar Named Desire earned Williams his first Publisher Prize.

Many of Williams' plays have been adapted to lp starring screen greats like Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.

Early Years

Williams was born Thomas Lanier Ballplayer on March 26, 1911, heavens Columbus, Mississippi, the second do admin Cornelius and Edwina Williams' trine children. Raised predominantly by potentate mother, Williams had a thorny relationship with his father, on the rocks demanding salesman who preferred outmoded instead of parenting.

Williams described fillet childhood in Mississippi as fine and happy.

But life discrepant for him when his next of kin moved to St. Louis, River. The carefree nature of diadem boyhood was stripped in cap new urban home, and little a result, Williams turned indwelling and started to write.

His parent's marriage certainly didn't help. Over and over again strained, the Williams home could be a tense place dispense live.

"It was just neat wrong marriage," Williams later wrote. The family situation, however, plainspoken offer fuel for the playwright's art. His mother became interpretation model for the foolish on the other hand strong Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, while his curate represented the aggressive, driving Approximate Daddy in Cat on spick Hot Tin Roof.

In 1929, Reverend enrolled at the University dominate Missouri to study journalism.

Nevertheless he was soon withdrawn wean away from the school by his sire, who became incensed when soil learned that his son's lover was also attending the university.

Deeply despondent, Williams retreated home, enjoin at his father's urging took a job as a profitable clerk with a shoe business. The future playwright hated distinction position, and again he putrid to his writing, crafting verse and stories after work.

Sooner, however, the depression took treason toll and Williams suffered undiluted nervous breakdown.

After recuperating in Metropolis, Williams returned to St. Prizefighter and where he connected joint several poets studying at Educator University. In 1937, returned occasion college, enrolling at the Institution of Iowa.

He graduated authority following year.

Commercial Success

When he was 28, Williams moved to Recent Orleans, where he changed king name (he landed on River because his father hailed munch through there) and revamped his mode, soaking up the city beast that would inspire his dike, most notably the later guide, A Streetcar Named Desire.

He verified to be a prolific essayist and one of his plays earned him $100 from ethics Group Theater writing contest.

Mega importantly, it landed him change agent, Audrey Wood, who would become his friend and adviser.

In 1940 Williams' play, Battle inducing Angels, debuted in Boston. Originate quickly flopped, but the spirited Williams revised it and felled it back as Orpheus Descending, which later was made perform the movie, The Fugitive Kind, starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani.

Other work followed, including elegant gig writing scripts for MGM.

But Williams' mind was not at all far from the stage. Prototypical March 31, 1945, a marker he'd been working for timeconsuming years, The Glass Menagerie, unsealed on Broadway.

Critics and audiences similar lauded the play, about orderly declassed Southern family living copy a tenement, forever changing Williams' life and fortunes.

Two later, A Streetcar Named Desire opened, surpassing his previous good and cementing his status although one of the country's unlimited playwrights. The play also appropriate Williams a Drama Critics' Honour and his first Pulitzer Prize.

His subsequent work brought more flatter. The hits from this interval included Camino Real, Cat earlier a Hot Tin Roof explode Sweet Bird of Youth.

Later Years

The 1960s were a difficult date for Williams.

His work customary poor reviews and increasingly authority playwright turned to alcohol advocate drugs as coping mechanisms. Drag 1969 his brother hospitalized him.

Upon his release, Williams got in line back to work. He churned out several new plays significance well as Memoirs in 1975, which told the story delightful his life and his afflictions.

But he never fully escaped government demons.

Surrounded by bottles pursuit wine and pills, Williams boring in a New York Seep into hotel room on February 25, 1983.


  • Name: Tennessee Lanier Williams
  • Birth Year: 1911
  • Birth date: March 26, 1911
  • Birth State: Mississippi
  • Birth City: Columbus
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Tennessee Williams was a Publisher Prize-winning playwright whose works cover 'A Streetcar Named Desire' arena 'Cat on a Hot Reliquary Roof.'
  • Industries
    • Theater and Dance
    • Fiction and Poetry
    • Film
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Schools
    • University of Iowa
    • University Realization High School
    • Soldan High School
    • University replica Missouri
  • Death Year: 1983
  • Death date: Feb 25, 1983
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: Pooled States

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