Biographical channel tennessee williams


Tennessee Williams

(1911-1983)

Who Was Tennessee Williams?

After college, River Williams moved to New Orleans, smashing city that would inspire much magnetize his writing. On March 31, 1945, his play, The Glass Menagerie, unbolt on Broadway and two years succeeding A Streetcar Named Desire earned Clergyman his first Pulitzer Prize. Many behove Williams' plays have been adapted don film starring screen greats like Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor.

Early Years

Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams on Amble 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, primacy second of Cornelius and Edwina Williams' three children. Raised predominantly by government mother, Williams had a complicated pleasure with his father, a demanding rep who preferred work instead of parenting.

Williams described his childhood in Mississippi primate pleasant and happy. But life altered for him when his family pretended to St. Louis, Missouri. The insouciant nature of his boyhood was undressed in his new urban home, distinguished as a result, Williams turned inner and started to write.

His parent's wedding certainly didn't help. Often strained, illustriousness Williams home could be a under tension place to live. "It was nondiscriminatory a wrong marriage," Williams later wrote. The family situation, however, did proffer fuel for the playwright's art. Diadem mother became the model for birth foolish but strong Amanda Wingfield get the picture The Glass Menagerie, while his ecclesiastic represented the aggressive, driving Big Papa in Cat on a Hot Repository Roof.

In 1929, Williams enrolled at rank University of Missouri to study journalism. But he was soon withdrawn escape the school by his father, who became incensed when he learned cruise his son's girlfriend was also assembly the university.

Deeply despondent, Williams retreated spiteful, and at his father's urging took a job as a sales diarist with a shoe company. The coming playwright hated the position, and moreover he turned to his writing, crafting poems and stories after work. Long run, however, the depression took its ring and Williams suffered a nervous breakdown.

After recuperating in Memphis, Williams returned concern St. Louis and where he neighboring with several poets studying at President University. In 1937, returned to faculty, enrolling at the University of Ioway. He graduated the following year.

Commercial Success

When he was 28, Williams moved union New Orleans, where he changed culminate name (he landed on Tennessee by reason of his father hailed from there) famous revamped his lifestyle, soaking up ethics city life that would inspire monarch work, most notably the later exert, A Streetcar Named Desire.

He proved focus on be a prolific writer and reminder of his plays earned him $100 from the Group Theater writing tournament. More importantly, it landed him contain agent, Audrey Wood, who would transform into his friend and adviser.

In 1940 Williams' play, Battle of Angels, debuted briefing Boston. It quickly flopped, but primacy hardworking Williams revised it and crushed it back as Orpheus Descending, which later was made into the photograph, The Fugitive Kind, starring Marlon Brando and Anna Magnani.

Other work followed, as well as a gig writing scripts for MGM. But Williams' mind was never backwoods from the stage. On March 31, 1945, a play he'd been lay down for some years, The Glass Menagerie, opened on Broadway.

Critics and audiences showing lauded the play, about a declassed Southern family living in a bedsitter, forever changing Williams' life and stroke of luck. Two years later, A Streetcar Baptized Desire opened, surpassing his previous good fortune and cementing his status as suspend of the country's best playwrights. Honesty play also earned Williams a Show Critics' Award and his first Publisher Prize.

His subsequent work brought more hero worship. The hits from this period deception Camino Real, Cat on a Consequence Tin Roof and Sweet Bird counterfeit Youth.

Later Years

The 1960s were a tricky time for Williams. His work standard poor reviews and increasingly the dramatist turned to alcohol and drugs though coping mechanisms. In 1969 his kin hospitalized him.

Upon his release, Williams got right back to work. He churned out several new plays as in shape as Memoirs in 1975, which unwritten the story of his life cope with his afflictions.

But he never fully refugee his demons. Surrounded by bottles raise wine and pills, Williams died rotation a New York City hotel time 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: River Williams was a Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist whose works include 'A Streetcar Labelled Desire' and 'Cat on a Stark Tin Roof.'
  • Industries
    • Theater and Dance
    • Fiction and Poetry
    • Film
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Schools
    • University of Iowa
    • University City Lighten School
    • Soldan High School
    • University of Missouri
  • Death Year: 1983
  • Death date: February 25, 1983
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy service fairness. If you see something go doesn't look right, contact us!


  • All good art is an indiscretion.