WRITER

Tennessee Williams

1911 - 1983

Photo of Tennessee Williams

Icon of person Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.At age 33, after years of obscurity, Williams suddenly became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. It was the first of a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Tennessee Williams has received more than 6,455,191 page views. His biography is available in 77 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 75 in 2019). Tennessee Williams is the 521st most popular writer (down from 434th in 2019), the 534th most popular biography from United States (down from 445th in 2019) and the 50th most popular American Writer.

Tennessee Williams is most famous for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Memorability Metrics

  • 6.5M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 66.50

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 77

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.71

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.74

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The night of the iguana
1939
The Roman spring of Mrs. Stone
1950
The Glass Menagerie
Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.
19454 / 5
A Streetcar Named Desire
Drama
The very title of Sweet Bird of Youth is one of ironic pity. The two chief characters--a raddled has-been actress from Hollywood, seeking to forget her present in drugs and sex, and her still handsome masseur-gigolo, who has brought her to his hometown in the South, believing that through her money and faded glamor his gaudy illusions may yet come true--are the reverse side of the American dream of youth. Yet as they work out their fate amid violence and horror, there is nevertheless a note of compassion for the damned.
19473 / 5
Cat on a hot tin roof
1955

Page views of Tennessee Williams by language

Over the past year Tennessee Williams has had the most page views in the with 753,901 views, followed by French (59,257), and Spanish (57,648). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Ido (103.38%), Bengali (91.68%), and Sicilian (81.24%)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Tennessee Williams ranks 521 out of 7,302. Before him are Aulus Gellius, Tom Clancy, Alvin Toffler, Henry IV of Castile, Elie Wiesel, and Marie-Antoine Carême. After him are Premchand, Jostein Gaarder, Harold Pinter, Jean Paul, Imadaddin Nasimi, and Pierre de Ronsard.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1911, Tennessee Williams ranks 22. Before him are Marshall McLuhan, Jack Ruby, Melvin Calvin, Lê Đức Thọ, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, and Robert Johnson. After him are Klaus Fuchs, Maurice Allais, Wilhelm Mohnke, Polykarp Kusch, Joseph Barbera, and Jean Harlow. Among people deceased in 1983, Tennessee Williams ranks 11. Before him are Luis Buñuel, Umberto II of Italy, Hergé, Idris of Libya, Jon Brower Minnoch, and Felix Bloch. After him are Meyer Lansky, Arthur Koestler, Albert Claude, Nikolai Podgorny, Raymond Aron, and David Niven.

Others Born in 1911

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Others Deceased in 1983

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Tennessee Williams ranks 534 out of 20,380. Before him are Chester A. Arthur (1829), Anna Politkovskaya (1958), Nelson Rockefeller (1908), Tom Clancy (1947), Alvin Toffler (1928), and Lawrence Kohlberg (1927). After him are Ferid Murad (1936), Anthony Perkins (1932), Gilbert N. Lewis (1875), Martin Cooper (1928), Jeff Bridges (1949), and Tobin Bell (1942).

Others born in United States

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Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Tennessee Williams ranks 50. Before him are Eugene O'Neill (1888), Patricia Highsmith (1921), George R. R. Martin (1948), Robert A. Heinlein (1907), Tom Clancy (1947), and Alvin Toffler (1928). After him are Richard Bach (1936), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804), T. S. Eliot (1888), Sidney Sheldon (1917), William S. Burroughs (1914), and James Baldwin (1924).

American born Writers

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