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Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams (age 54) photographed by Orland Fernandez in 1965 for the twentieth anniversary of The Glass Menagerie.
Personal information
Birth nameThomas Lanier Williams
Birth dateMarch 26, 1911
Place of birthColumbus, Mississippi, United States
Date of deathFebruary 25, 1983(age 71)
Death placeNew York City, New York, United States
NationalityAmerican
Period1930 - 1983

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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 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 William's 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 Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, David Mamet and John Waters, and his plays remain among the most produced in the world."


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