Becket, or the Honor of God (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Jean Anouilh was born near Bordeaux, France, on June 23, 1910, to middle-class parents. Anouilh attended school in Paris and briefly studied law. During the years 1929 – 1931, he worked for an advertising agency and wrote two plays as well as comic gags for the cinema. In 1931, his play L'Hermine premiered in Paris. From this point on, he achieved growing success in theater. In 1936, Anouilh's play Le Voyageur sans baggage (Traveller without Luggage) became his first financial success. This play was made into a film in 1945 called Identity Unknown.

Anouilh struggled with despair during the years of World War II, and his plays of this time, including Eurydice (1941), Antigone (1942), Roméo et Jeannette (1945), and Médée (1946), reflected the politics and despair of a city under Nazi occupation.

After the war, Anouilh turned to the life of Joan of Arc for his 1953 play, L'Alouette (The Lark) in which he explored issues of honor and resistance. Resistance and honor also surfaced in his 1959 play Becket, or the Honor of God, first performed on October 1, 1959, in Paris and subsequently in New York in 1960. The play won a Tony Award. An English film version quickly followed starring Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton in 1961.

The post – World War II years were perhaps Anouilh's most successful. His plays were widely produced across Europe and the United States. During these years, he was in serious conflict with Charles De Gaulle, a conflict he detailed in his play L'Hurluberlu (1958).

Though Anouilh enjoyed both popular and critical success during the 1950s, his work fell from critical favor in the later 1960s and grew increasingly conservative. Nonetheless, Anouilh's large body of work, including some thirty plays as well as popular films, continues to identify him as a leading international playwright of the twentieth century. Anouilh died in Sausanne, Switzerland, on October 3, 1987.