Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. His professional career lasted from the mid 1930s until his death in 1983, and saw the creation of many plays that are regarded as classics of the American stage. Williams adapted much of his best known work for the cinema.
Williams received virtually all of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama, including several New York Drama Critics' Circle awards, a Tony Award for best play for The Rose Tattoo (1951) and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). In 1980 he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter and is today acknowledged as one of the most accomplished playwrights in the history of English speaking theater.
Theater scholar Charlotte Canning, of the University of Texas at Austin where Williams' archives are located, has said, "There is no more influential 20th-century American playwright than Tennessee Williams... He inspired future generations of writers as diverse as Tony Kushner, David Mamet and John Waters, and his plays remain among the most produced in the world."
Read more about Tennessee Williams: Career, Personal Life, Death, Posthumous Recognition, Bibliography
Famous quotes by tennessee williams:
“For time is the longest distance between two places.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an’ death’s the other.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Bohemia has no banner. It survives by discretion.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going.”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)
“You said, ‘They’re harmless dreamers and they’re loved by the people.’M’What,’ I asked you, ‘is harmless about a dreamer, and what,’ I asked you, ‘is harmless about the love of the people?—Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.’”
—Tennessee Williams (1914–1983)