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Dramatist and fiction writer; one of America's
major mid-20th-century playwrights.
Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier
Williams in Columbus, Mississippi, on March
26, 1911.
Williams died in New York City, February 25,
1983.
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When Williams was about 13, his family
moved to a crowded tenement in St. Louis,
Missouri. At the age of 16 he published his
first story. At 17 he entered the University of
Missouri but left before receiving a degree.
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He worked for two years for a shoe company,
spent a year at Washington University (where
he had his first plays produced), and earned a
bachelor of arts degree from the State
University of Iowa in 1938, the year he
published his first short story under his
literary name.
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The Glass Menagerie changed Williams'
fortunes
Autobiographical piece
The play opened in Chicago in December
1944 and in New York in March
It received the New York Drama Critics Circle
Award
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When A Streetcar Named Desire opened in
1947, New York audiences knew a major
playwright had arrived. It won a Pulitzer Prize.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) won the New
York Drama Critics Circle Award and a
Pulitzer Prize.
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Williams also wrote fiction, including two
novels, one autobiography and four volumes
of short stories
Over 100 poems written
Nine of his plays were made into films
He wrote one original screenplay, Baby Doll
(1956).
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Suffered from depression after death of his
partner in 1961
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Williams
continued to write for the theater, though he
was unable to repeat the success of most of
his early years.
One of his last plays was Clothes for a
Summer Hotel (1980), based on the American
writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda.