Tennessee Williams collection of noncommercial recordings, 1948.

Links

• View catalog record
• View finding aid

Creator

Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983.

Location

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound

Extent

• 13 sound discs : analog, acetate.

Access Restrictions

Access to original discs restricted ; use service compact disc. Advance notification for some items may be required.

Scope/Contents Notes

Eleven of the thirteen recordings in the collection were made by Williams in 1948 at a New Orleans carnival booth facility. These recordings primarily feature Williams reading his poems, including selections from In the Winterof Cities. Williams also participates in apparently impromptu comic sketches with friends.

The remaining two recordings are songs by composer Ray Cook with texts from In the Winter of Cities, here performed by tenor and piano. Individual song titles (from the Blue mountain ballads) are: Heavenly grass; Lonesome man; Cabin; and Sugar in the cane. These two recordings were given to Williams by Ray Cook.

Biographical/Historical Notes

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), born Thomas Lanier Williams in Columbus, Mississippi, was an American playwright, poet, and novelist. Being from an old Tennessee family, he adopted his first name while in New Orleans in 1939. After graduating from the State University of Iowa in 1938, he traveled around the countrywhile working at odd jobs and writing short plays and getting occasional productions in community theaters. He worked briefly as a scriptwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1943.

He achieved sudden success with the New York production of The Glass Menagerie (1945). His subsequent success camewith A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), which won a PulitzerPrize.

Although Williams' life was marked by personal disarray,mental stress, and drug ddiction, he enjoyed long-term relationships with male companions and continued to be productive. In 1968 he converted to Catholicism.

He also published two novels and several poems. Many of his plays were made into successful movies, but his later works were not well received and he became disaffected from the New York professional theater. He died by chokingon the cap of a bottle of pills.

Controlled Access Terms

• Poets, American.
• Songs with piano.
• Sound recordings.

Additional Creator Names

• Cook, Ray. cmp
• Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983. In the winter of cities. Selections.