HELLMAN, LILLIAN FLORENCE

HELLMAN, LILLIAN FLORENCE
HELLMAN, LILLIAN FLORENCE (1905–1984), U.S. playwright. Sources vary about the year of her birth. The Library of Congress lists it as 1906. The New York Times, the newspaper of record, in its obituary for her in 1984, listed her age as 79. She first worked for a publishing house and wrote short stories. Turning to the theater, she won instant fame with The Children's Hour (1934), a psychological tragedy about a schoolgirl's accusation of lesbianism against two of her teachers. The play ran for 691 performances in New York and was later made into a movie; it was banned in England. Her reputation was enhanced by The Little Foxes (1939), which portrayed a reactionary Southern family striving to maintain its position in face of social change. The play was adapted for the screen two years later and made into a successful opera, Regina, by marc blitzstein (1949). She wrote an outspokenly anti-Nazi drama, Watch on the Rhine (1941), partly inspired by her experiences in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Hellman's gift for dialogue and her remarkable stage technique were allied to a skill in handling strong, even unpleasant, themes. After The Searching Wing (1944), set in pre-World War II Europe and wartime America, came Another Part of the Forest (1946), a sequel to The Little Foxes. In the 1950s Hellman's career was arrested as a result of her refusal to incriminate fellow artists when called before the U.S. Congress's House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952, at the height of the McCarthy era. Declaring that "I cannot and will not cut up my conscience to fit this year's fashions," she thereby resigned herself to several years of relative anonymity. Toys in the Attic (1960) dealt with problems of race and sex in her native New Orleans. Together with Richard Wilbur and leonard bernstein , she also wrote Candide (1957), a comic opera based on Voltaire's satirical classic. Her own interpretation of her political history – which was and is controversial – is easily found in her memoirs: An Unfinished Woman (1969), Pentimento (1973), Scoundrel Time (1976), and her meditation, Maybe, A Story (1980). (In 1979, Mary McCarthy called Hellman "dishonest" as a writer and in 1980, Martha Gellhorn argued that An Un-finished Woman was, in the main, fiction.) Hellman's life and personality enjoyed renewed interest when her semi-autobiographical story of the wartime relationship between two   women was made into a film, Julia, with Jane Fonda playing the part of Hellman. For years, the great love of her life was Dashiell Hammett, a writer of classic crime novels such as The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Estrin (ed.), Critical Essays on Lillian Hellman (1989); P. Feibleman, Lily: Reminiscences of Lily (1988); B.Horn, Lillian Hellman: A Research and Production Sourcebook (1998); C. Rollyson, Lillian Hellman: Her Legend and Her Legacy (1988). Anon., "Lillian Hellman … Dies at 79," New York Times (July 1, 1984), 1. (Joseph Mersand / Rohan Saxena and Lewis Fried (2nd ed.)

Encyclopedia Judaica. 1971.

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  • Hellman, Lillian (Florence) — born June 20, 1905, New Orleans, La., U.S. died June 30, 1984, Vineyard Haven, Martha s Vineyard, Mass. U.S. playwright. After working as a book reviewer, press agent, and play reader, she began writing plays in the 1930s. Her first major success …   Universalium

  • Hellman, Lillian (Florence) — (20 jun. 1905, New Orleans, La., EE.UU.–30 jun. 1984, Vineyard Haven, Martha s Vineyard, Mass.). Dramaturga estadounidense. Trabajó como crítica literaria, agente de prensa y lectora de guiones, y en la década de 1930 comenzó a escribir obras de… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Florence — /flawr euhns, flor /, n. 1. Italian, Firenze. a city in central Italy, on the Arno River: capital of the former grand duchy of Tuscany. 464,425. 2. a city in NW Alabama, on the Tennessee River. 37,029. 3. a city in E South Carolina. 30,062. 4. a… …   Universalium

  • Florence — (as used in expressions) Florence Nightingale Graham Griffith Joyner, (Delorez) Florence Delorez Florence Griffith Hellman, Lillian (Florence) Nightingale, Florence Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson Florence Margaret Smith Edith Anna Oenone… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Lillian — /lil ee euhn/, n. a female given name. Also, Lilian. * * * (as used in expressions) Gish Lillian Diana Hellman Lillian Florence Russell Lillian * * * …   Universalium

  • Lillian — (as used in expressions) Gish, Lillian (Diana) Hellman, Lillian (Florence) Russell, Lillian …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Lillian Hellman — Lillian Florence Hellman (20 de junio de 1905, Nueva Orleans 30 de junio de 1984, Martha s Vineyard) fue una dramaturga estadounidense. Conocida por su compromiso político con causas izquierdistas, por su relación sentimental con el escritor… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Lillian Hellman — Infobox Writer name = Lillian Hellman imagesize = 200px caption = birthdate = birth date|1905|6|20 birthplace = New Orleans, Louisiana deathdate = death date and age|1984|6|30|1905|6|20 deathplace = Tisbury, Massachusetts occupation = writer… …   Wikipedia

  • Hellman — /hel meuhn/, n. Lillian Florence, 1905 84, U.S. playwright. * * * …   Universalium

  • Hellman — Hell•man [[t]ˈhɛl mən[/t]] n. big Lillian Florence, 1905–84, U.S. playwright …   From formal English to slang

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