Hellman, Lillian

Hellman, Lillian (1905–84), playwright. The New Orleans–born writer studied at New York University and Columbia, then took employment as a manuscript reader for Herman Shumlin and book reviewer before Shumlin produced her first play, the controversial The Children's Hour (1934), about two school teachers falsely accused of lesbianism. Hellman's labor drama, Days to Come (1936), was a quick failure, but her third play, The Little Foxes (1939), was a huge hit and is generally acknowledged to be her finest work. With the coming of World War II Hellman turned to current affairs, writing two timely (and popular) dramas, Watch on the Rhine (1941) and The Searching Wind (1944). Another Part of the Forest (1946) was a prequel to The Little Foxes and her Montserrat (1949) an adaptation of Emmanuel Robles's French drama about hostages who gave their lives to protect Simon Bolívar. Perhaps Hellman's most subtle, even Chekhovian, work was The Autumn Garden (1951), about some idlers at a summer resort who are forced to face the reality of their failures. Her translation of Jean Anouilh's version of the Joan of Arc story The Lark (1955) was a success, but her libretto for Candide (1956) was not. Hellman's final theatre efforts were the popular Toys in the Attic (1960) and the short‐lived My Mother, My Father and Me (1963). Her best writing has been characterized by a superb sense of theatre, taut construction, and acute personal observation of human behavior, often coupled with an attempt to probe major moral and political issues. Often a political activist, Hellman also wrote three controversial memoirs: An Unfinished Woman (1969), Pentimento (1973), and Scoundrel Time (1976). Biography: Lillian Hellman: The Image, The Woman, William Wright, 1986.