Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), American dramatist, whose plays are distinguished for the forcefulness of their subject matter, usually a condemnation of personal and social evil. They are also notable for character development and expert construction.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Hellman was educated at New York and Columbia universities. Her plays include The Children's Hour (1934), in which a malicious child's accusations of lesbianism ruin the lives of two schoolteachers; The Little Foxes (1939), in which the members of a Southern family struggle unscrupulously with one another for the family wealth after the American Civil War (1861-1865); and The Watch on the Rhine (1941), in which a leader of an anti-Nazi movement visiting the United States is forced to kill a Nazi agent. This play won her a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1941. Hellman's other plays include The Searching Wind (1944); Another Part of the Forest (1946); and The Lark (1955), a story of Joan of Arc, adapted from the play L'Alouette, by the French dramatist Jean Anouilh. In 1960 Toys in the Attic (1960) won Hellman a second New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. All of these plays have been made into films.

Hellman was awarded the 1970 National Book Award in arts and letters for her autobiography An Unfinished Woman (1969). This work was continued with Pentimento (1973), a collection of prose portraits of herself and others whose lives influenced hers; the 1977 movie Julia was based on one of these sketches. The autobiography ended with Scoundrel Time (1976), an account of her experiences during the McCarthy-era investigations of Communism in the United States (see McCarthy, Joseph Raymond).