Last modified on April 9, 2019, at 16:44

Lillian Hellman

Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) was an American author. Her works include An Unfinished Woman (1969), Pentimento (1973), and Scoundrel Time (1976).[1]

Life and Works

Hellman was born June 20, 1905, in New Orleans, Louisiana.[2] She smoked, drank, got close to Dashiell Hammett, and worked as a prostitute before writing her first play, about a teaching killing herself after being accused of lesbianism, "The Children's Hour."[3] She supported the Spanish Loyalists, McCarthyism, flappers, and Sigmund Freud.[4] She wrote many short plays about malicious exploitation and reminisced about her communism and leftist causes in An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento, and Scoundrel Time.[5] Culminating the proof of her bad taste, she made Voltaire's Candide into a musical.

She died June 30, 1984, in Martha's Vineyard.

References