Tennesse Williams´ life notes

Author of “A Streetcar Named Desire” - Tennessee Williams

• The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee’s first successful play
• He hated being a celebrity
• Declared one of the best play writers
• “Many people who reach glory at an early age realize the emptiness of fame”
• Didn’t like praise, it annoyed him and made him think people were fake towards him
• After an eye operation he viewed his life more clearly, literally and figuratively
• Then he escaped to Mexico to be his former self again.
• His father was a violent man
• He didn’t have the “perfect” family. Had a sister called Rose
• Dad was violent and alcoholic. Mum was smooth and caring.
• Rose withdrew to a private mental world, she became schizophrenic.
• Tennessee blamed himself for her madness
• Tennessee was homosexual
• In Streetcar, he shaped the story from his own experience
• He hardly disguised his parents, his sister and himself when he cast them as characters on the stage. Places where he lived became settings.
• He changed his name and over the years he offered varying explanations for the new name.
• Most of Tennessee’s characters are based on real people in his life, many of them family members.
• During his last years Williams kept writing, but one plat after the other failed.
• To ease pain he turned to drinks and drugs.
• He needed several operations for cataracts.
• The new plays received terrible notices, driving him in to deeper addiction.
• He died in a New York hotel room in 1983
• Police reports say that pill were found under his body