Tennessee Williams (age 5) in Clarksdale, Mississippi In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays, and a volume of memoirs. Much of Williams's most acclaimed work has been adapted for the cinema. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on short lists of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. With his later work, Williams attempted a new style that did not appeal as widely to audiences. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). He introduced 'plastic theatre' in this play and it closely reflected his own unhappy family background. Īt age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams suddenly became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. Thomas Lanier Williams III (Ma– February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter.
