Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 24, 1983) was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee", the state of his father's birth. He won the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama for
A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948 and for
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. In addition,
The Glass Menagerie (1945) and
The Night of the Iguana (1961) received
New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. His 1952 play
The Rose Tattoo received the
Tony Award for best play.
Biography
Williams was born
Thomas Lanier Williams III in
Columbus, Mississippi in the home of his maternal grandfather, the local
Episcopal rector. The home is now the Mississippi Welcome Center and tourist office for the city. Williams' middle name,
Lanier, indicates his family's Virginia connections to the artistic family from England.
By the time Thomas was three, the family had moved to
Clarksdale, Mississippi. At seven, he was diagnosed with
diphtheria. It caused his legs to be paralyzed for nearly two years but his mother encouraged him to make up stories and read. She gave him a typewriter when he was 11.
His father Cornelius Williams was a traveling salesman who became increasingly abusive as his children grew older. The father often favored Tennessee's brother Dakin, perhaps because of Tennessee's illness and extended weakness and convalescence as a child. Tennessee's mother Edwina Dakin Williams had aspirations as a genteel southern lady and was smothering. She may have had a mood disorder.
In 1918, when Williams was seven, the family moved again, this time to
University City, Missouri, where he later attended
University City High School.
[Tennessee Williams and John Waters (2006) Memoirs, New Directions Publishing, 274 pages ISBN 0811216691] In 1927, at 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, he published "The Vengeance of
Nitocris" in
Weird Tales.
In the early 1930s Williams attended the
University of Missouri, where he joined
Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. His fraternity brothers dubbed him "Tennessee" for his rich southern drawl. In the late 1930s, Williams transferred to
Washington University in
St. Louis, Missouri for a year, and finally earned a degree from the
University of Iowa in 1938. By then, Williams had written
Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay!. This work was first performed in 1935 at 1780 Glenview in Memphis.
Tennessee Williams found inspiration in his problematic family for much of his writing.
Williams lived for a time in the
French Quarter of
New Orleans, Louisiana. He moved there in 1939 to write for the
WPA. He first lived at 722 Toulouse Street, the setting of his 1977 play
Vieux Carré. The building is part of
The Historic New Orleans Collection. He began writing
A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) while living at 632 St. Peter Street. He finished it later in
Key West, Florida, where he moved in the 1940s.
Tennessee was close to his sister Rose, a slim beauty who was diagnosed with
schizophrenia at a young age. As was common then, Rose was institutionalized and spent most of her adult life in mental hospitals. When therapies were unsuccessful, she showed more paranoid tendencies. In an effort to treat her, Rose's parents authorized a
prefrontal lobotomy, a drastic treatment that was thought to help some mental patients who suffered extreme agitation. Performed in 1937 in
Knoxville, Tennessee, the operation incapacitated Rose for the rest of her life.
Williams never forgave his parents. Her surgery may have contributed to his
alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of
amphetamines and
barbiturates often prescribed by
Dr. Max (Feelgood) Jacobson.
["The Kindess of Strangers", Spoto] They may have shared a genetic vulnerability, as Williams also suffered from depression.
Williams worked extremely briefly in the renowned
Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan, lasting less than a day.
Williams' relationship with Frank Merlo, a second generation Sicilian American who had served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, lasted from 1947 until Merlo's death from cancer in 1963. With that stability, Williams created his most enduring works. Merlo provided balance to many of Williams' frequent bouts with
depression[Jeste ND, Palmer BW, Jeste DV. Tennessee Williams. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2004 Jul-Aug;12(4):370-5. PMID: 15249274 [1]] and the fear that, like his sister Rose, he would go insane.
Death
Williams died on February 24, 1983, after he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the
Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye.
[Suzanne Daley (27.2.1983). Williams Choked on a Bottle Cap. The New York Times (engl.; abgerufen 27. Mai 2007)] His brother Dakin and some friends believed he was murdered. The police report, however, suggested his use of drugs and alcohol contributed to his death. Many toxic drugs were found in the room. Williams' gag response may have been diminished by the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Williams' funeral took place on Saturday March 3, 1983 at St. Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in New York City. Williams' body was interred in the
Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. Williams had long told his friends he wanted to be buried at sea at approximately the same place as the poet
Hart Crane, as he considered Crane to be one of his most significant influences.
Williams left his literary rights to
The University of the South in honor of his grandfather, Walter Dakin, an alumnus of the university. It is located in
Sewanee, Tennessee. The funds support a creative writing program. When his sister Rose died after many years in a mental institution, she bequeathed over 50 million dollars from her part of the Williams estate to
The University of the South as well.
In 1989, the University City Loop (in a suburb of St. Louis) inducted Tennessee Williams into its
St. Louis Walk of Fame.
The work
The "mad heroine" theme that appeared in many of his plays seemed clearly influenced by the life of Williams' sister Rose.
[
Leigh in Streetcar Named Desire trailer 2.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Vivien Leigh] as
Blanche DuBois in
A Streetcar Named Desire]] (1951)
Characters in his plays are often seen as representations of his family members. 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, as well as Williams himself. When Williams wrote
A Streetcar Named Desire, he believed he was going to die and that this play would be his
swan song.
Amanda Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie was generally seen to represent Williams' mother. Characters such as Tom Wingfield in
The Glass Menagerie and Sebastian in
Suddenly, Last Summer were understood to represent Williams himself. In addition, he used a lobotomy operation as a
motif in
Suddenly, Last Summer.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and
A Streetcar named Desire both included references to elements of Williams' life such as homosexuality, mental instability and alcoholism.
Williams wrote
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer when he was 29 and worked on it through his life. It seemed an autobiographical depiction of an early romance in
Provincetown, Massachusetts. This play was produced for the first time on October 1, 2006 in Provincetown by the
Shakespeare on the Cape production company, as part of the First Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival.
The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer was among several works published by
New Directions in the spring of 2008, edited and introduced by Williams scholar Annette J. Saddik. This collection of experimental plays was titled
The Traveling Companion and Other Plays.
Williams' last play
A House Not Meant to Stand is a gothic comedy published in 2008 by
New Directions with a foreword by Gregory Mosher and an introduction by Thomas Keith. Williams called his last play a "Southern gothic spook sonata."
Short stories by Tennessee Williams
One-Act Collections by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams wrote over 70 one-act plays during his lifetime. The one-acts explored many of the same themes that dominated his longer works. Williams' major collections are published by
New Directions in New York City.
Collected works
- Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-88301186-4.
- Gussow, Mel and Holditch, Kenneth, eds. Tennessee Williams, Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America, 2000) ISBN 978-1-88301187-1.
Cultural references
- Williams' work has had a great influence on the British band The The. For example, "Sweet Bird of Truth" is a track on their album Infected; the track "August and September" on the album Mind Bomb starts with the lines "Suddenly last summer/I started going out of my head".
- Gore Vidal refers to Williams as the "Glorious Bird" when he met him in Rome after World War II. He noted the image of "the bird is everywhere in his work".
"I think I'm like Tennessee Williams
I wait for the click
I wait, but it doesn't kick in"
- Contemporary rock band The Strokes presumably refer to Williams in the opening song titled "What ever Happened?" on their 2003 album Room on Fire:
"Oh, Tennessee, what did you write?
I come together in the middle of the night."
- Country music singer Don Williams referred to Williams in his 1980 hit, "Good Ole Boys Like Me", penned by Bob McDill:
"I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees
And those Williams boys they still mean a lot to me
Hank and Tennessee
I guess we're all gonna be what we're gonna be"
- Elton John refers to Williams on his 1995 album Made In England with a lyric in the song "Lies", and again on his autobiographical 2006 album The Captain and The Kid with a lyric in the song "Old '67":
"I could be great like Tennessee Williams
If I could only hear something that sounds like the truth"
"Laughin' about how the two of us sound
Like a Tennessee Williams play"
- Pam Tillis references Williams in her song "Maybe It Was Memphis"
"Read about you in a Faulkner novel"
"Met you once in a Williams play"
"Heard about you in a country love song"
"Summer night beauty took my breath away."
- In an episode of The Simpsons, Marge stars as Blanche Dubois in a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire.
- In the season finale of One Tree Hill season 2, Lucas Scott quotes Tennessee Williams as the episode ends.
- An award-winning stage comedy entitled The Glass Mendacity spoofs and combines Williams' three famous plays: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, and A Streetcar Named Desire.
- Actress Angelina Jolie has a tattoo on her right forearm that is a Tennessee Williams quote: "A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages."
- In the 2008 movie Transsiberian, character, Jess, played by Emily Mortimer mentioned a quote by Tennessee Williams; "Kill all my demons and my angels might die too."
- In an early episode of Gilmore Girls, Blanche DuBois and her "gentlemen callers" are referenced.
See also
Footnotes
