Thomas (Tennessee) Lanier Williams born March 26, 1911 in Columbus, The second of three kids. His father a shoe salesman and his mother thedaughter of a preacher. Williams lived a family life of turmoil. His family oftenengaged in violent arguments during his youth. Williams got his first taste of fame in1929 when he took third place in a national essay contest. Williams started college atthe University of Missouri until his father forced him to quit and go to work for hisfathers shoe factory. Later Williams returned to college in 1937 and where heresumed the writing of plays. Williams had two of his plays, Candles to the Sun and The Fugitive Kind,produced by Mummers of St. Louis, and in 1938. Williams graduated from theUniversity of Iowa. Williams then went to Chicago in search of work, failing, he thenmoved to New Orleans and changed his name from Tom to Tennessee which was thestate of his father's birth. In 1939, the young playwright received a $1,000Rockefeller Grant. In 1944, what many consider to be his best play, The GlassMenagerie, had a very successful run in Chicago, and a year later worked its way ontoBroadway. People think that Williams used his own family relationships as plots forthe play. The Glass Menagerie won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for bestplay of the season. Williams followed up his first major critical success with severalother Broadway hits including such plays as A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer andSmoke, A Rose Tattoo, and Camino Real. He received his first Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for A Streetcar Named Desire, and reached an even larger world-wide audience in1950 and 1951 when The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire were madeinto major motion pictures. Later plays which were also made into motion picturesinclude Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , which he earned a second Pulitzer Prize in 1955.Williams struggled with depression throughout most of his life. For much ofhis life, he battle...
