Thomas "Tennessee" Lanier Williams III

1911-1983

Tennessee Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in American history.  Between the mid-1940s and the early 1960s, he wrote several award-winning plays, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  Known for gritty characters and heartbreaking themes, these plays combined poetic language with dramatic flair and are recognized today as American classics.

He was born in Columbus, Mississippi and was known in his early life as "Tom" he was the second of three children in his family.  Tom attended University City High School where his writing started to draw attention.  In 1929, Williams enrolled in the journalism departmet at the University of Missouri in Columbia.  His first known play, Beauty is the Word, won an honorable mention in the school's annual Dramatic Arts Contest. In 1937, two of his plays, Candles to the Sun and The Fugitive Kind, were staged in St. Louis. Tom later enrolled at the University of Iowa.  He worked in the drama department and graduated with an English degree in 1938.

After graduation, Wiliams submitted plays to a competition in New York City.  Since the age requirement was twenty-tive, he changed his birth date from 1911 to 1914 and his name to "Tennessee" Williams.  He won a special $100 prize in the contest and was, from that time on, known professionally as Tennessee Williams.  He gave several reasons for adopting a new name:  It was a reaction against his early inferior work published under his real name; his new name had been a college nickname; he chose the name because his father was from Tennessee plus he felt the name was unique.  

Williams' breakthrough hit, The Glass Menagerie, was filled with characters based on his troubled family.  It opened in Chicago to great reviews in 1944 and moved to Broadway the following year where the opening night audience applauded through twenty-five curtain calls!  

The Glass Menagerie won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1945 and was the first in a long string of successes for Williams.  A Streetcar Named Desire won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Dram in 1948.  The Rose Tattoo won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1951 and in 1955, Caton a Hot Tin Roof won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  Williams' last major success on Broadway, Night of the Iguana, opened in 1961 and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award.

Tennessee Williams' plays changed American theatre.  Many of his plays were successfully adapted into award-winning movies and television programs.  Several have been revived on Broadway and in theatres.  They are considered American classics.  The city of New Orleans puts on the annual Tennessee Williams Literary Festival.