Tennessee Williams
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Tennessee Williams was an American playwright who lived from 1911 to 1983 and wrote some of the most celebrated plays in American theater history. He matters because his works, including famous plays like *A Streetcar Named Desire* and *The Glass Menagerie*, profoundly shaped modern drama and continue to be widely performed and studied.
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Person · Open Library
- Born
- 26 March 1911
- Died
- 25 February 1983
- Works
- 345
Top works
- Cat on a hot tin roof
- Lel ha-Iguʾanah
- The night of the iguana
- Rimskai︠a︡ vesna Missis Stoun
- The Best American Short Stories 1973
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Film & TV
Writing · Columbus, Mississippi, USA
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. At age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams suddenly became famous with the success of The Glass…
Known for
- Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation — Self - Playwright (archive footage)2021
- Beautiful Darling — Self (archive footage)2010
- The Yellow Bird — Narrator (voice)2002
- Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage — Self (archive footage)1994
- The Kennedy Center Honors — Self
Article
Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.
Writing his first play in 1930, Williams' work did not gain much traction until 1944 with the success of The Glass Menagerie. His next plays, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961), were also successful and widely acclaimed. With his later work, Williams attempted a new style that did not appeal as widely to audiences. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
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1911 births1983 deaths20th-century American dramatists and playwrights20th-century American male writers20th-century American novelists20th-century American screenwriters20th-century American short story writersAccidental deaths in New York (state)Actors Studio alumniAmerican gay writersAmerican LGBTQ dramatists and playwrightsAmerican male dramatists and playwrights