Major Life Events
1911- Born in Columbus, Mississippi on March 26
1918- Family moves to St. Louis
1927- Wins essay contest for Smart Set Magazine
1929- Enters University of Missouri, leaves that same year
1931- Begins working for a shoe company
1935- First play, Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay produced in Memphis.
Begins career as playwright
1937- Enrolls at Washington University in St. Louis, leaves shortly
there after
1938- Graduates from the University of Iowa
1939- Wins $100 Group Theatre prize for American Blues
- Gets a $1000
Rockefeller Grant to write new play
1941- Begins screenwriting for MGM for stars like Lana Turner
1942- Glass Menagerie's early incarnation is rejected as a movie,
Williams quits and moves to Chicago to have it produced
1944- Glass Menagerie opens in Chicago, Broadway run is planned
1945- Glass Menagerie opens on Broadway
- Glass Menagerie
wins New York Drama Critics' Award for best play
1947- A Streetcar Named Desire opens on Broadway
- Streetcar wins New
York Drama Critics' Award for best play
- Met and fell in
love with Frank Merlo
1948- Williams receives Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Streetcar
1950- Glass Menagerie is made into a movie starring Kirk Douglas
and Gertrude Lawrence
1951- A Streetcar Named Desire is made into a movie starring
Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando
1955- Cat On A Hot Tin Roof opens on Broadway
- Cat On A Hot
Tin Roof wins New York Drama Critics' Award for best play
- Wins second
Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
1958- Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is made into a movie starring Elizabeth
Taylor and Paul Newman
1963- William's lover, Frank Merlo, dies
1975- Publishes his Memoirs
1983- Dies in his hotel room in NY by choking on a medicine
bottle cap on February 24
Major Works
The Glass Menagerie (1945),
A Streetcar Named Desire(1947),
Summer and Smoke (1948), and
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1955)
Works Published (with dates of publication)
Plays:
27 Wagons Full of Cotton, and Other One Act Plays. 1945.
The Glass Menagerie. 1945.
Battle of Ages. 1945.
A Streetcar Named Desire. 1947.
You Touched Me! 1947.
American Blues. 1948.
Summer and Smoke. 1948.
The Rose Tattoo. 1951.
I Rise a Flame, Cried the Phoenix. 1951.
Camino Real. 1953.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 1955.
Suddenly Last Summer. 1958.
Orpheus Descending. London: 1958.
A Perfect Analysis is Given by a Parrot. 1958.
Garden District. 1959.
Sweet Bird of Youth. 1959.
The Fugitive Kind. 1960.
Period of Adjustment. 1960.
The Night of the Iguana. 1961.
Five Plays. 1962.
The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. 1964.
Grand. 1964.
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. 1964.
The Mutilated. 1967.
Kingdom of the Earth. 1968.
In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel. 1969.
Dragon Counting, A Book of Plays. 1970.
Small Craft Warnings. 1973.
Vieux Carre. 1979
The Two-Character Play. 1979.
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coer. 1980.
Steps Must Be Gentle. 1980.
Clothes for a Summer Hotel: A Ghost Play1983.
Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays. 1984.
The Remarkable Rooming-House of Mme. LeMonde. 1984.
The Red Devil Battery Sign. 1988.
Something Cloudy, Something Clear. 1995.
Not About Nightingales. 1998.
Fiction:
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. 1950.
Hard Candy. 1959.
Three Players of a Summer Game. 1960.
The Knightly Quest. 1966.
One Arm, and Other Stories. 1967.
Eight Moral Ladies Possessed. 1974.
Moise and the World of Reason. 1975.
It Happened the Day the Sun Rose. 1981.
Short Stories. 1986.
Poetry:
Five Young American Poets. 1944.
In the Winter of Cities. 1956.
Androgyne, Mon Amour. 1977.
Other:
Blue Mountain Ballads. 1946.
Lord Byron's Love Letter. 1955. (Libretto by TW).
Baby Doll: The Script for the Film. 1956.
Memoirs. 1975.
Letters to Donald Windham. 1977.
Where I Live. 1978.
Five O' Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St.
Just, 1948-1982. 1990.
The Notebook of Trigorin: A Free Adaptation of Anton Chekhov's
The Sea Gull.
1997.
Productions and Adaptations
Stage Productions:
Cairo, Shanghai, Bombay, Memphis, 1935.
Candles to the Sun, St. Louis, 1937.
The Fugitive Kind, St. Louis, 1937.
Battle of Angels, Boston, 1940.
The Glass Menagerie, Chicago, 1944.
The Glass Menagerie, Broadway, 1945.
A Streetcar Named Desire, Broadway, 1947.
Summer and Smoke, Broadway, 1948.
The Rose Tattoo, Broadway, 1951.
Camino Real, Broadway, 1953.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Broadway, 1955.
Orpheus Descending, Broadway, 1957.
Garden District, off-Broadway, 1958.
Sweet Bird of Youth, Broadway, 1959.
Period of Adjustment, Broadway, 1960.
Night of the Iguana, Broadway, 1961.
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, Broadway, 1963.
Slapstick Tragedy, Broadway, 1966.
The Two Character Play, London, 1967.
The Seven Descents of Myrtle, Broadway, 1968.
In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, Broadway, 1969.
Small Craft Warnings, off-Broadway, 1972.
Out Cry, Broadway, 1973.
Red Devil Battery Sign, Boston, 1975.
This Is (An Entertainment), San Francisco, 1976.
Vieux Carre, Broadway, 1977.
A Lonely Sunday for Creve Coeur, off-Broadway, 1979.
A House Not Meant to Stand, Chicago, 1980.
Something Cloudy, Something Clear, off-Broadway, 1980.
Movies and Television:
The Glass Menagerie, 1950.
A Streetcar Names Desire, 1951.
The Rose Tatoo, 1955.
Baby Doll, 1956.
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 1958.
Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959.
The Fugitive Kind, 1960.
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, 1961.
Summer and Smoke, 1961.
Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962.
Period of Adjustment, 1962.
Night of the Iguana, 1964.
This Property is Condemned, 1966.
Boom, 1968.
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, 1969.
A Streetcar Named Desire, TV, 1984.
The Glass Menagerie, TV, 1987.
Sweet Bird of Youth, TV, 1989.
Suddenly, Last Summer, TV, 1993.
A Streetcar Named Desire, TV, 1995.
Style
Williams is regarded as one of the greatest American playwrights, and a great innovator of his genre. He used his life experiences of alcoholism, homosexuality, family life, and friends in his plays. Most of William's work are set in the South, and portray a Romantic Gothic feel of the area (a la Faulkner) in which the contemporary decay is juxtaposed to the more refined old ways. Williams, more so than any other playwright is remembered for his characters. Blanche Du Bois, Stanley Kowalski, Big Daddy, Laura, Tom, all have become prominent figures in American theatre. Perhaps this is because how well Williams fleshes out characters and thus, makes them very real to the reader and audience. All of his most famous characters are modeled after his family members or friends. For example, Laura in Glass Menagerie is a representation of William's sister who underwent a frontal lobotomy her parents approved. Tom is representative of Williams himself, who had to go to work at a Shoe Factory to support the family because the father was always on the road. Williams also brought many issues such as homosexuality, fetishism, sex, his belief in the falsehood of religion, and domestic violence, shocked the audiences of his time. William's language in his plays is often thought of as too poetic, and his plays are often called too wordy, others would say that his language is highly stylized, but yet still natural sounding. Williams plays often contain an overbearing male figure, often a husband, and an almost overly emotional female. A major theme is survival in a world that seems bent on crushing the human spirit and the inescapable-ness of the human condition. Overall, Williams was able to bring new issues to the theatre and great characters while still touching on many universal themes.
Links/Bibliography
-Literature Online Biography: http://longman.awl.com/kennedy/twilliams/biography.html
-Mississippi Writers Biography: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/ms- writers/dir/williams_tennessee/
-Books and Writers Biography: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/williams.htm
- Bibliography with Assesment: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/williams.html
-Kennedy Center Honors Bio: http://kennedy-center.org/honors/history/honoree/williams.html
-Personal Biography: http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc9.htm
-Encyclopedia Biography: http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc9.htm
-Williams Festival: http://www.tennesseewilliams.net/
-Dissertation on William's Work: http://www.etsu.edu/haleyd/disshome.html