VCE English

 

What can you tell me about Tennessee Williams?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1911 - 1983

 

• Born in Mississippi

• Later moved to New Orleans

• The Glass Menagerie, opened on Broadway

• 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

• Honest, ground breaking and controversial playwright

• Praised for creating real, flawed, honest and relatable characters

 

 

 

Childhood

 

• Difficult childhood

• Father - Cornelius - emotionally absent and abusive

• Older sister - Rose - emotionally unstable, lobotamy

• Mother - Edwina - grew up with a mother who was a spoiled 'Southern Belle'

 

 

 

Controversy

 

• Attended three different Universities

• Drug and alcohol problems

• Found life unsatisfactory

• Plays dealt with topics that were taboo within the time

• Blacklisted by Roman Catholic Cardinal Spellman, who condemned one of his scripts as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, offensive to Christian standards of decency.”

• Gay

• Frank Merlo, died of cancer

• 1970's hospitalised

• Died age 71 - New York hotel - bottle of pills and wine