Tennessee Williams

Author profile

born

March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, The United States

died

February 25, 1983

gender

male

genre

Theater

influences

Anton Chekhov, D.H. Lawrence

About this author

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Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. His 1952 play The Rose Tattoo (dedicated to his lover, Frank Merlo), received the Tony Award for best play.

Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass M...more Thomas Lanier Williams III, better known by the nickname Tennessee Williams, was a major American playwright of the twentieth century who received many of the top theatrical awards for his work. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee," the state of his father's birth. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. His 1952 play The Rose Tattoo (dedicated to his lover, Frank Merlo), received the Tony Award for best play.

Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was understood to be modeled on Rose. Some biographers believed that the character of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is also based on her.

Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Williams' mother, Edwina. Characters such as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to represent Williams himself. In addition, he used a lobotomy operation as a motif in Suddenly, Last Summer.

The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. These two plays were later filmed, with great success, by noted directors Elia Kazan (Streetcar) with whom Williams developed a very close artistic relationship, and Richard Brooks (Cat). Both plays included references to elements of Williams' life such as homosexuality, mental instability, and alcoholism. Although The Flowering Peach by Clifford Odets was the preferred choice of the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1955 and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was at first considered the weakest of the five shortlisted nominees, Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of the Board, had seen Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and thought it worthy of the drama prize. The Board went along with him after considerable discussion.[18]

Williams wrote The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29 and worked on it sporadically throughout his life. A semi-autobiographical depiction of his 1940 romance with Kip Kiernan in Provincetown, Massachusetts, it was produced for the first time on October 1, 2006 in Provincetown by the Shakespeare on the Cape production company, as part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.

Other works by Williams include Camino Real and Sweet Bird of Youth.

His last play went through many drafts as he was trying to reconcile what would be the end of his life.[14] There are many versions of it, but it is referred to as In Masks Outrageous and Austere.(less)

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Books by Tennessee Williams

Average rating: 3.83 · 104,865 ratings · 2,260 reviews · 170 distinct works

	A Streetcar Named Desire 3.92 avg rating — 49,756 ratings — published 1947 — 70 editions	My rating:
	The Glass Menagerie 3.56 avg rating — 30,808 ratings — published 1945 — 42 editions	My rating:
	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 4.03 avg rating — 13,558 ratings — published 1955 — 39 editions	My rating:
	Suddenly Last Summer 3.90 avg rating — 2,003 ratings — published 1958 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The Night of the Iguana 3.77 avg rating — 1,364 ratings — published 1961 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Summer and Smoke 3.86 avg rating — 683 ratings — published 1948 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Sweet Bird of Youth 3.67 avg rating — 580 ratings — published 1959 — 5 editions	My rating:
	The Rose Tattoo 3.69 avg rating — 544 ratings — published 1951 — 9 editions	My rating:
	A Streetcar Named Desire and Other Plays 4.10 avg rating — 441 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	Orpheus Descending 3.96 avg rating — 422 ratings — published 1957	My rating:

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Quotes by Tennessee Williams

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”
― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

tags: distance , time

1,470 people liked it

“Kill all my demons, and my angels might die too.”
― Tennessee Williams

289 people liked it

“Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation.”
― Tennessee Williams

tags: friendship

276 people liked it

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Tennessee Williams

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Quotes by Tennessee Williams

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Books by Tennessee Williams