Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) writing at his typewriter. - He was brilliant and prolific, breathing life and passion into such memorable characters as Blanche DuBois and Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. And like them, he was troubled and self-destructive, an abuser of alcohol and drugs. He was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was derided by critics and blacklisted by Roman Catholic Cardinal Spellman, who condemned one of his scripts as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, offensive to Christian standards of decency”.