Go
February 8th, 1999
Tennessee Williams
About Tennessee Williams

He was brilliant and prolific, breathing life and passion into such memorable characters as Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski in his critically acclaimed A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. And like them, he was troubled and self-destructive, an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was awarded four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was derided by critics and blacklisted by Roman Catholic Cardinal Spellman, who condemned one of his scripts as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, offensive to Christian standards of decency.” He was Tennessee Williams, one of the greatest playwrights in American history.

Born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi in 1914, Tennessee was the son of a shoe company executive and a Southern belle. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as happy and carefree. This sense of belonging and comfort were lost, however, when his family moved to the urban environment of St. Louis, Missouri. It was there he began to look inward, and to write— “because I found life unsatisfactory.” Williams’ early adult years were occupied with attending college at three different universities, a brief stint working at his father’s shoe company, and a move to New Orleans, which began a lifelong love of the city and set the locale for A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

Williams spent a number of years traveling throughout the country and trying to write. His first critical acclaim came in 1944 when THE GLASS MENAGERIE opened in Chicago and went to Broadway. It won a Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and, as a film, the New York Film Critics’ Circle Award. At the height of his career in the late 1940s and 1950s, Williams worked with the premier artists of the time, most notably Elia Kazan, the director for stage and screen productions of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, and the stage productions of CAMINO REAL, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, and SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH. Kazan also directed Williams’ film BABY DOLL. Like many of his works, BABY DOLL was simultaneously praised and denounced for addressing raw subject matter in a straightforward realistic way.

The 1960s were perhaps the most difficult years for Williams, as he experienced some of his harshest treatment from the press. In 1961 he wrote THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, and in 1963, THE MILK TRAIN DOESN’T STOP HERE ANY MORE. His plays, which had long received criticism for openly addressing taboo topics, were finding more and more detractors. Around this time, Williams’ longtime companion, Frank Merlo, died of cancer. Williams began to depend more and more on alcohol and drugs and though he continued to write, completing a book of short stories and another play, he was in a downward spiral. In 1969 he was hospitalized by his brother.

After his release from the hospital in the 1970s, Williams wrote plays, a memoir, poems, short stories and a novel. In 1975 he published MEMOIRS, which detailed his life and discussed his addiction to drugs and alcohol, as well as his homosexuality. In 1980 Williams wrote CLOTHES FOR A SUMMER HOTEL, based on the lives of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Only three years later, Tennessee Williams died in a New York City hotel filled with half-finished bottles of wine and pills. It was in this desperation, which Williams had so closely known and so honestly written about, that we can find a great man and an important body of work. His genius was in his honesty and in the perseverance to tell his stories.

(13 votes)
Loading ... Loading ...
15 Responses to “About Tennessee Williams”
  1. Yann rochefort says:

    I loved this peice and i wish i was able to be him

  2. Yann rochefort says:

    This person made good book that are fun to read. This book made huge influence on my freind mathieu giroux. And it also saved him from his dipression. And btw my favorite movie is bruno

  3. Yann rochefort says:

    I am yannrochefort and i am reading the book a streetcar named disire i love this book it is the most intressting book ever and by the way im gay

  4. Bob says:

    this writing has inspired me.

  5. AltenirBolinha says:

    Great! Great! One of the greatest playwright! Always an inspiration for this difficult art, butwonderful.

  6. AltenirBolinha says:

    Great! One of the greatest playwright! Always an inspiration for this difficult art, but wonderful.

  7. Jerry Grissom says:

    I remember when Tennessee died. He lived in an apartment building for artist on 42nd Street, not a hotel. He choked to death on a “childproof asprin bottle cap”. He NY Times had to write a retraction that it wasn’t drug related.

    We still miss him!

  8. Justin Newkirk says:

    i love this book. harry potter is my favorite character eva!!! wizards are the best. i wish i could be one everyday of my life! i cant wait for the new movie. much love to all the other wizard lovers. lets all hop on da train to hogwarts together hav bundles of joy together. we can all beat it together while watching wizard porn.

  9. Mufassa says:

    this guy is a true inspiration to all of us, if it wasn’t for Tennessee i would be lost in this deep dark world. Reading through his works shows me how special he was, and i wish i was his wife, so i could wake up next to him in the morning,

  10. Mufassa says:

    i miss him too

  11. esther holder says:

    yes, great book. i am gay also.

  12. ryan gibson says:

    yes yes yes yes yes amazing woop great book i love it im gay aswell and i love it. gay pride.

  13. samantha youngblood says:

    HE HAS GREAT BOOKS

  14. cyrus minab says:

    I’ve just been watching ’sweet bird of youth’ and I’m impressed by Williams genius and how contemporary he is. Prolific

  15. Scary Mary says:

    Would just like to politely point out that Tennessee Williams was born in 1911, not 1914. ;)

Leave a Reply

Please note that the THIRTEEN editorial staff reserves the right to not post comments it deems to be inappropriate and/or malicious in nature, as well as edit comments for length, clarity and fairness. No solicitations or advertisements will be allowed. Users may link to other Web sites relevant to discussion, but most often links to commercial Web sites will not be permitted.

Produced by THIRTEEN    ©2010 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.