Tennessee Williams

He was very close to his sister Rose who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Williams moved her to a private institution and visited her often.

A homosexual, Williams had accepted his sexual orientation by 1930 and joined a gay circle. From 1940–47, he was in a few relationships but they didn’t work out.

He met Frank Merlo, with whom he had a long and loving relationship for 14 years until his disloyalty and drug problems started. Williams was most happy when he was with Merlo.

He was born Thomas Lanier Williams in Mississippi to Edwina and Cornelius Coffin Williams. He was the second of three children. He was of English, Welsh and Huguenot descent. His father was a shoe salesman who was always travelling.

When he was young he suffered from diphtheria which nearly killed him and left him weak, fragile and confined indoors. He gained inspiration from his rough childhood and dysfunctional family.

While attending high school he started writing a number of essays which were published in school magazines and newspapers.

He attended the University of Missouri from 1929 to 1931 to study Journalism. In order to earn some extra money, he entered into writing contests. His first submitted play was ‘Beauty Is the Word’ (1930) followed by ‘Hot Milk at Three in the Morning’ (1932).

At the university he joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity but it did not work out. After failing a military training course, he was pulled out and made to work at the International Shoe Company by his father. The hatred he felt towards his work made him write even more vigorously.

After graduation he moved to New Orleans to start a new life. He started going about with a new name- Tennessee.

All through 1940’s he traveled around new places with different jobs.

In 1944, his play ‘The Glass Menagerie’ won the New York Critics Circle Awards. It became an instant success and had a long Broadway run as well.

His next play was an even greater success. This play marked his arrival; ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ in 1947 secured his reputation as a great playwright.

From 1948 to 1959, Williams was an unstoppable force. Seven of his plays were performed in Broadway including ‘Summer and Smoke’ (1948), ‘The Rose Tattoo’ (1951), and ‘Orpheus Descending’ (1957).

His first critical and commercial success was ‘The Glass Menagerie’ in 1944. This play is said to be autobiographical with characters and instances from his personal life. This play set the tone for Williams and marked the arrival of the great playwright.

The 1947 play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ was a reminder of the time when he was taken out of school and forced by his father to slog at the shoe company. The protagonist Stanley Kowalski is in a similar situation and most of the plots are taken from his own personal life.

‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ was a story of a Southern family in crisis. It sheds light on superficiality, sexual desire, repression and death. The dialogue has been written in such a way that phonetically it represents the Southern United states.