Tennessee williams family background

Tennessee williams famous works
Where did tennessee williams go to college
How did tennessee williams die

•

Tennessee Williams

(1911-1983)

Who Was Tennessee Williams?

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

Early Years

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

Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as pleasant and happy. But life changed for him when his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri. The carefree nature of his boyhood was stripped in his new urban home, and as a result, Williams turned inward and started to write.

His parent's marriage certainly didn't help. Often strained,

•

Tennessee Williams Biography

Tennessee Williams

At Writers Theatre:A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams was one of the preeminent American dramatists of the 20th century. His major plays include The Glass Menagerie (New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), A Streetcar Named Desire (Pulitzer Proize and New ork Drama Critics' Circle Award), Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo (Tony Award), Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award), Orpheus Descending, Suddenly, Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Night of the Iguana (Tony Award), The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore and Vieux Carre. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Baby Doll, a novel titled The RomanSpring of Mrs. Stone and over seventy one-act plays. Born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911 to a shoe salesman and a southern belle, Williams grew up in Mississippi and later St. Louis, Missouri. He attended university in Missouri and became interested in theatre, adopting the name Tennessee. Williams died in 1983 at the age of 71.

[Bio as

•

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams’ renowned work reflects his two decades of coming of age in St. Louis, and his creations range from the famed classics, to adaptations for film and opera, to dozens of newly discovered plays and writings that have been continuously documented, performed and studied around the world. Considered by many to be America’s greatest playwright, Williams is best known for his award-winning powerful plays, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and “The Glass Menagerie.”

His beloved and enduring characters throughout his more than 30 full-length plays -- Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois, Amanda and Laura, Maggie the Cat, to name a few -- represent the loneliness, depression and uncertainty that were a part of his personal life. A product of a tumultuous marriage, his difficult and troubling childhood provided fodder for his art. In fact, his mother and sister became the models for the foolish but strong character of Amanda Wingfield, and the fragile daughter Laura, res