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William's family was composed of English, French, and Huguenot ancestry. His mother Edwina Dakin was the daughter of Rose O. Dakin, a music teacher, and the Reverend Walter Dakin, an Episcopal priest from Illinois who was assigned to a parish in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Williams lived in his grandfather's rectory with his family for much of his early childhood and was close to his grandparents. His father was a descendant of East Tennessee pioneers -
Williams had two siblings. His older sister Rose Isabel Williams and his younger brother Walter Dakin Williams. His mother would take care of them while his father was an alcoholic travelling shoe salesman with violent tendencies. He would not be very present in the family. As a young child, Williams nearly died from a case of diphtheria that left him frail and virtually confined to his house during a year of recuperation. The dysfunctional family would inspire him, especially Glass Menagerie. -
Tennessee Williams was born as Thomas Lanier Williams III in Columbus, Mississippi to parents Cornelius Coffin Williams and Edwina Dakin. -
When Williams was eight years old, his father was promoted to a job at the home office of the International Shoe Company in St. Louis. His mother's continual search for a more appropriate home, as well as his father's heavy drinking and loudly turbulent behavior, caused them to move numerous times around St. Louis. Williams attended Soldan High School. Later he studied at University City High School. Williams would explore his writing in High School, though it would not lead to much significance -
Williams was enrolled in journalism classes. He was bored by his classes distracted by an unrequited love. He soon began entering works in contests, hoping to earn extra income.
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Tennessee Williams first submitted play. Over the course of one act, two young and worldly aesthetes visit their austere and forbidding missionary relatives somewhere in the South Pacific. When the natives revolt and threaten to burn down the mission, the young couple saves the day by appealing to the natives with dance and music rather than fear of damnation. -
After failing a military training course in his junior year, his father pulled him out of school and put him to work with him at the International Shoe Company factory. Williams hated this job and started dedicating himself to seriously writing for a living. He would overwork himself on his writing and not finding success he would have a nervous breakdown by his 24th birthday and quit his job. This period and a coworker would inspire the character of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. -
Williams enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis where he wrote Me, Vashya and after not winning the school's poetry prize, he dropped out. -
Things can't get much screwier than this tale of woe! The hero is more like a heroine and vice versa. Our female villain is also masquerading as...well a villain. The children run wild, the teacher runs for his life and school superintendent runs everyone crazy, and everyone is bored of education. A real gender bender that's not so tender set in Wachita, Kansas. -
In the autumn of 1937, Williams transferred to the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he graduated with a B.A. in English in August 1938.
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Williams would attend the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City where he fell in love with theatre. Around the time, he adopted Tennessee Williams as his professional name, in acknowledgement of his Southern accent and roots. -
In the late 1930s, after some brief relationships with women, Williams began exploring his homosexuality. He joined a gay social circle in New York and had a number of relationships with men up until his death. These relationships weren't the healthiest and in many accounts were destructive.
His partner include:
Kip Kiernan, a young dancer who left to marry a woman
Pancho Rodríguez y González, a hotel clerk with problems
Rafaello, a young Italian
Frank Merlo, an actor and veteran
R. Carrol, vet -
One of, if not the defining event, of the 20th Century, shaping American society for the next two decades at least. This post-war society is reflected in works. He was also disqualified from serving in the military due to his poor eyesight.
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Williams and his sister were close. Rose was diagnosed with schizophrenia and in 1943, their mother insisted on her undergoing a full lobotomy, as with many women during that time. This would leave her unable to care for herself and institutionalized for the rest of her life. This heavily affected Williams and he would use his wealth to care for her. Transferring her to a private institution and frequently visiting her. Sadly, this would also be a cause for William's later addictions and fears. -
In this memory play, narrator Tom Wingfield who is also a character in the play, tells the story from his memories. Set in St. Louis in 1937, Tom works a tiresome job in a shoe warehouse in order to support his mother, Amanda, and his sister, Laura. His father, Mr. Wingfield, left the family years ago, and with the exception of one postcard, has not been heard from since. But his presence is pervasive, as his picture still hangs in the family’s living room. -
Williams started gaining mainstream popularity in the late 1930s when he published multiple works and with help from his agent Audrey Wood received a $1,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. He was able to move to New Orleans where he worked for the WPA and kept honing his craft. The grant got him attention from MGM, which gave him a contract as a writer. In 1944-45 his play The Glass Menagerie was produced in Chicago and moved to New York. This and his next play Streetcar were successes
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The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her once-prosperous situation to move into a shabby apartment in New Orleans rented by her younger sister Stella and brother-in-law Stanley. The play explores themes of sex and gender roles, mental instability, and mortality in the face of the post-World War II era. The play would be adapted to film in 1951, starring Marlon Brando and winning many awards. -
After huge success with his career, Williams would struggle with mental health, relationships, and drugs. His work would suffer and following his partner Frank Merlo's death, he would get increasingly depressed. This would lead him to being institutionalized and medicated. He would even be treated by Dr. Max Jacobson who combined amphetamines and Seconal. The latter being his cause of death. He would convert to Catholicism, influenced by his brother, though it did not help his fears of aging.
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A family in the American South is in crisis, especially the husband and wife, Brick and Margaret, and the crisis unspools with Brick's family over the course of one evening's gathering at the family plantation in Mississippi. The party celebrates the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt and his return from the Ochsner Clinic with what he has been told is a clean bill of health. All family members (except Big Daddy) are aware of the true diagnosis: he is dying of cancer. -
In 1959, Williams staged it as a one-act play, and over the next two years he developed it into a full-length play, producing two different versions, and then arriving at the three-act version that premiered on Broadway.
The Rev. Shannon characterizes God as a "delinquent" and is locked out of his church. Shannon is institutionalized for a "nervous breakdown". In Mexico, some time after his release, the Rev. Shannon is working as a tour guide for a travel agency. Adapted to film in 1964. -
Williams was found dead at age 71 in his suite at the Hotel Elysée in New York City. He died of a barbiturates overdose, specifically a toxic level of secobarbital. -
Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. The Tony Award for Best Play 1951 to The Rose Tattoo.
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was awarded to A Streetcar Named Desire and to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama 1969
In 1979, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Williams is honored with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. -