Tennessee Williams Biography and latest books by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams III, March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American writer who worked principally as an American playwright. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. His professional career lasted from the mid 1930s until his death in 1983, and saw the creation of many plays that are regarded as classics. He received virtually all of the top theatrical awards, including Tony Award for best play for The Rose Tattoo (1951) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). In 1980 he was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy.

Childhood
Thomas Lanier Williams III was the second child of Edwina and Cornelius Williams. His father was a hard-drinking traveling shoe salesman who spent most of his time away from home. His mother, Edwina, was an archetype of the Southern belle, whose social aspirations tilted toward snobbery and whose behaviour was neurotic and hysterical. Shortly after his birth, his grandfather Dakin was assigned to a parish in Clarksdale, Mississippi and Williams\' early childhood was spent in the parsonage there.

His family included an older sister Rose, and a younger brother, Dakin. ‘Tom’, as he was called in his youth, developed a close bond with his sister. Rose and their negro nursemaid, Ozzie, were his only companions. It is said that growing up in a female-dominated environment gave Williams empathy for the woman characters he created as a playwright. Fragile and neurotic, eventually to the point of mental illness, Rose inspired a host of characters in his fiction. Williams would find inspiration in his dysfunctional family for his writing.

Education
Williams was seven when his father was promoted to a job at the home office of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. His mother\'s continual search for what she considered to be an appropriate address, as well as his father\'s violent behavior, caused them to move numerous times around the city. He attended Soldan High School, a setting referred to in his work The Glass Menagerie. Later he studied at University City High School. In 1927, at age 16, Williams won third prize (five dollars) for an essay published in Smart Set entitled, "Can a Good Wife Be a Good Sport?" A year later, his short story The Vengeance of Nitocris was published in the magazine Weird Tales.

He attended the University of Missouri, in Columbia, from 1929 to 1931, where he enrolled in journalism classes. While the university\'s School of Journalism was regarded one of world\'s best, Williams found his classes boring. He was soon entering his poetry, essays, stories, and plays in writing contests, hoping to earn extra income.

His first submitted play was Beauty is the Word (1930), followed by Hot Milk at Three in the Morning (1932). As recognition for Beauty..., a play about rebellion against religious upbringing, he became the first freshman to receive honorable mention in a contest.

Career
In the late 1930s, as the young playwright struggled to have his work accepted, he supported himself with a string of menial jobs. In 1939, with the help of his agent he was awarded a $1,000 grant as a recognition of his play Battle of Angels which was produced in Boston in 1940.

In 1944-45, The Glass Menagerie was successfully produced in Chicago garnering good reviews. It moved to New York where it became an enormous hit during its long Broadway run. The play tells the story of a young man, Tom, his disabled sister, Laura, and their controlling mother Amanda, who tries to make a match between Laura and a gentleman caller. Williams use of his own familial relationships as inspiration for the play is impossible to miss. It is observed that: "Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life." The Glass Menagerie won the New York Drama Critics\' Circle Award for best play of the season.

The huge success of his next play, A Streetcar Named Desire, in 1947 secured his reputation as a great playwright. Although widely celebrated and increasingly wealthy, he was still restless and insecure that he would not be able to duplicate his success. During the late 1940s and 1950s Williams began to travel widely with his partner Frank Merlo in order to stimulate his writing.

Between 1948 and 1959 seven of his plays were performed on Broadway: Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Garden District (1958), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). By 1959 he had earned two Pulitzer Prizes, three New York Drama Critics\' Circle Awards, three Donaldson Awards, and a Tony Award.

His work reached world-wide audiences in the early 1950s when The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire were made into motion pictures. Later plays also adapted for the screen included Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana and Summer and Smoke

After the extraordinary successes of the 1940s and 50s, the 1960s and 70s brought personal turmoil and theatrical failures. Although he continued to write every day, the quality of his work suffered from his increasing alcohol, drug consumption and poor choices of collaborators. Consumed by depression over the death of his partner, Williams spiraled downward. Kingdom of Earth (1967), In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel (1969), Small Craft Warnings (1973), The Two Character Play (also called Out Cry, 1973), The Red Devil Battery Sign (1976), Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980) and others were all box office failures. His last play, A House Not Meant To Stand was produced in Chicago in 1982 and, despite largely positive reviews, ran for only 40 performances.

Personal life
After some early attempts at heterosexual relationships, by the late 1930s Williams had accepted his homosexuality. In New York he joined a gay social circle which included fellow writer and close friend Donald Windham and his then lover Fred Melton. In the summer of 1940 Williams initiated an affair with Kip Kiernan, a young Canadian dancer. When Kiernan left him for a woman and marriage he was distraught, and Kiernan\'s death four years later delivered another blow.

In New York in 1948, Williams met and fell in love with Frank Merlo, an occasional actor of Sicilian heritage who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War II. This enduring relationship lasted 14 years until infidelities and drug abuse on both sides ended it shortly before Merlo\'s death in 1963. Merlo provided a period of stability and balanced the playwright\'s depression. Their years together were Williams\' most productive.
As he had feared, in the seven years following Merlo\'s death Williams was plunged into a period of nearly depression and increasing drug use. Williams appeared several times in interviews in a nearly incoherent state, and his reputation both as a playwright and as a public personality suffered. He was never truly able to recoup his earlier success.

Death
On February 25, 1983, Williams was found dead in his suite at the Elysee Hotel in New York at age 71. The medical examiner\'s report indicated that he was choked to death.

His characters
Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family. 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.

A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  included references to elements of Williams\' life such as homosexuality, mental instability, and alcoholism.