American playwright (1911–1983)
He turned the American South into a theater of longing — humid nights, faded gentility, desire pressed against restraint. A Streetcar Named Desire alone secured the claim, but he kept delivering: The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Night of the Iguana.
Thomas Lanier Williams III wrote his first play in 1930, but fourteen years passed before The Glass Menagerie broke through in 1944. What followed was a run few playwrights match: A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955, Sweet Bird of Youth in 1959, The Night of the Iguana in 1961. His later work pushed toward a new style that audiences didn't follow. Much of the catalog moved to film; he also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death on February 25, 1983, he entered the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Sourced, dated quotes from Tennessee Williams
Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.
I never saw a more beautiful woman, enormous eyes, skin the color of Devonshire cream.
I don't ask for your pity, but just for your understanding—not even that—no. Just for your recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.
The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.
The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.
News and signals about Tennessee Williams
The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.
Similar profiles worth watching
United States
.jpg?width=1200)
.jpg?width=1200)
