Odets, Clifford

Odets, Clifford (1906–63),born in Philadelphia and reared in the Bronx, quit school at 15 to become an actor. After acting with the Theatre Guild, he became a founder of the Group Theatre (1931), and was catapulted to fame by its production of his one‐act play Waiting for Lefty (1935), dealing with a taxi strike. This success was followed by the production of Awake and Sing (1935) and the one‐act play Till the Day I Die (1935), about the struggle of the German Communists at the beginning of the Hitler regime. These plays brought Odets a reputation as the leading proletarian playwright at the time, although he was less concerned with the problems of the worker than with the “fraud” of middle‐class civilization, deprived by its economic insecurity of its former status and becoming aware that most of its cherished ideals no longer correspond to realities. Further realistic plays written for the Group are Paradise Lost (1935); Golden Boy (1937; revised as a musical, 1964), about a young Italian‐American violinist whose desire for wealth and fame leads him to become a pugilist, and who dies in an automobile crash, having attempted to find an escape in speed from the loss of his inner security; Rocket to the Moon (1938), portraying a Bronx dentist who attempts to find happiness in a belated love affair, but fails because his will has been vitiated by the meanness of his past life; Night Music (1940), the love story of a lower‐middle‐class couple in New York; and Clash by Night (1941), a love “triangle.” Later plays, infrequent because of motion‐picture work, are The Big Knife (1948), about an idealistic actor corrupted by money easily earned from motion pictures; The Country Girl (1950), about an alcoholic actor's marriage; and The Flowering Peach (1954), a retelling of the Noah tale.