Orpheus Descending (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Playwright, novelist, and short-story writer Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi, the son of Cornelius Coffin (a traveling salesman) and Edwina (Dakin) Williams. Williams, whose first published story appeared in Weird Tales in 1928, attended the University of Missouri from 1931 to 1933, continued his education at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1936 to 1937, and then graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Iowa in 1938. Before he became a full-time writer in 1944, Williams worked various jobs, including clerk and laborer for a shoe company in St. Louis, and waiter, hotel elevator operator, teletype operator, and theatre usher in New Orleans; Jacksonville, Florida; and New York City.

In 1940 Williams's first major production, Battle of Angels, took place in Boston, but the play was a failure and was quickly withdrawn. However, Williams did not have to wait long for success. The Glass Menagerie, first staged in 1944 in Chicago and then running for 561 performances in New York City, won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and established his reputation.

In 1947 A Streetcar Named Desire was an even greater success, winning another Drama Critics Circle Award as well as a Pulitzer Prize. Williams then entered a prolific period, and over a period of a decade, a new play of his was produced every few years. These include Summer and Smoke (1947), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955; which won a Pulitzer Prize), Orpheus Descending (1957; a revised version of Battle of Angels), Garden District (1958; which became Suddenly Last Summer, 1964), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). Many, although not all, of these plays were highly acclaimed, commercial successes. But in the 1960s, Williams's critics became harsher, disturbed by the amount of violence and sexuality in his plays and what they saw as repetitious themes.

Williams had a mental breakdown in 1969 and was committed to an institution in St. Louis. Upon recovery, he continued to produce plays. These include Out Cry (1971), Small Craft Warnings (1972), and Clothes for a Summer Hotel (1980). During this period, his reputation revived, and he was acknowledged as one of the foremost American dramatists. His plays were translated into many languages and many of them were made into films.

Williams also produced three volumes of short stories, two novels, a memoir, and essays. He died February 24, 1983, when he choked on a medicine bottle lid in a New York City hotel.