Tennessee Williams

Born Thomas Williams in Mississippi in 1911 into a poor family, he was given the nickname 'Tennessee' by college classmates poking fun at his strong southern accent. Williams wrote flawed characters and exposed dark family secrets - sometimes too dark for Hollywood who often toned down his works for film. Being gay and suffering from depression and later alcoholism, Williams had his fair share of secrets to draw from. He won two Pulitzer Prizes in Drama - "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947) and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1954) and was quoted in Elia Kazan's autobiography as saying, "There are no 'good' or 'bad' people. Some are a little better or a little worse but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. A blindness to what is going on in each other's hearts... Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos." A hugely influential character on the American cultural stage, his film works are gathered below. "Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going." - Tennessee Williams