Clifford Odets

Clifford Odets (1906-1963), American playwright, regarded as the most gifted of the American social-protest playwrights of the 1930s. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was reared in New York City. He left school at the age of 15 to become an actor. In 1931 Odets helped found the Group Theatre in New York City. Most of his plays were produced by the Group Theatre, including Waiting for Lefty (1935), a one-act play about a taxi drivers' strike that established his fame; Awake and Sing! (1935), about a Jewish family in the Bronx during the Great Depression; and Till the Day I Die (1935). After the unsuccessful production of his play Paradise Lost (1935), Odets went to Hollywood, California, where he wrote the screenplay for the motion picture The General Died at Dawn (1936). He then returned to New York City, where he wrote more plays for the Group Theatre, including Golden Boy (1937), Silent Partner (1938), Rocket to the Moon (1938), Night Music (1940), and Clash by Night (1941), all concerned with the frustration of individual potential by economic insecurity and the materialistic ideals of middle-class society. Odets subsequently spent several years in Hollywood and wrote many screenplays, including None but the Lonely Heart (1944) and The Story on Page One (1959). He also wrote the plays The Big Knife (1949) and The Country Girl (1950).