Lillian Hellman Essay, Research Paper

Lillian Hellman was one of the most influential and successful playwrights of her time.

Throughout her professional life she has expanded her writing into different genres, as

well as being a playwright she was a screenwriter during a popular time in Hollywood and

later in her life she wrote many popular memoirs reviewing her life. Hellman was

gripped with many obstacles in her career and personal life, including a torrid love affair

with writer Dashiell Hammett, having to testify in front of the house on un-American

activities and being a female in a male dominated profession.

Julia Newhouse and Max Bernard Hellman had only one child, Lillian Florence

Hellman, born June 20th 1905 in New Orleans. Growing up she would spend her time

between New York where her parents lived in New Orleans. Lillian stayed with her two

aunts in a bed and breakfast they owned in the French Quarter. As a child Lillian would

romp through the dangerous city of new Orleans by herself proving she was very

independent at an early age. Six months out of the year she would attend school in New

Orleans, the rest was spent in New York where she also attended school. She decided to

go to college in the east, attending both New York University and Columbia University.

In 1925 Lillian Hellman left college and read scripts for a living. On December

31st she married her husband Arthur Kober, who also became a successful playwright.

Through these years Hellman traveled to Paris and Germany. Kober and Hellman moved

to Hollywood in 1930, where Kober worked as a screenwriter and Lillian Hellman read

manuscripts for MGM. In Hollywood she met Dashiell Hammett. Shortly after she moved

to New York and lived with Hammett, she divorced Arthur Kober.

In New York Hammet wrote The Thin Man modeling his character Nora Charles

after Lillian. After little luck in New York Hellman moved back to California as a

screenwriter. While in Hollywood her mother died. The Children’s Hour an early and

controversial play written by Hellman opened in London. The play deals with a child’s

accusation that ruins two school teachers lives. The taboo subject matter of same sex

relationships that the play deals with led to praise by her peers and boycotting by

conservatives. The Little Foxes is the next Hellman play to be performed, it is her most

popular play yet, staying open for 410 performances. In The Little Foxes material greed

for power create tragic conflicts in a southern family. Hellman bought a 130 acre farm in

upstate new York with the money her plays had brought her. Watch on the Rhine opens in

1941, with the success of this play Hellman had established her endurance and talent

throughout the literary and theatrical world. In Watch on the Rhine, the destructive evil of

the nazi disrupts the sheltered lives of a suburban family in Washington ,DC. She went on

to write the Autumn garden (1951) and Toys in the Attic( 1960).

In 1952 Lillian Hellman was supposed to appear before the house un-American

activities committee for her slight affiliations with the communist party in Hollywood

when she was a script writer. Hammet was also harassed by Charles Mcarthy and the

committee, leading to his arrest. Hellman refused to discuss her friends political views as

many Hollywood employees were forced to do. this was what she thought on the subject;

“I’m pleased with what I did in front of the house UN American committee because it had

good results and it let other people take the same position, which was the first time

anybody had ever taken it.” (Bryer dust cover)

Dashiell Hammett died in 1961. In the 1970’s Hellman gained recognition for her

autobiographical writings. She was the author of three memoirs, An Unfinished Woman,

Pentimento, and Scoundrel Times. Throughout these books she recalled her relationships

with many people during her life. From her childhood best friend, Julia, who was killed

during World War II, to her maid on her farm. All three memoirs gained critical acclaim

and consumer recognition. An Unfinished Woman was the winner of the National Book

Award and Pentimento was made into a movie starring Jane Fonda. Scoundrel Time, her

last published work touches on the hardships she suffered during the Mcarthy era.

“Hellman combined tightly woven plots with insight into psychological weakness

and deep concern with the social issues of her time,” one critic said about her work. She

was thought of as a strong woman in hard times, “I don’t have to tell you how deeply I

believe in women’s liberation. I think some of its cries are rather empty cries because I

think it all comes down to whether or not you can support yourself as well as a man can

support himself.” (Bryer dust cover) Lillian Hellman died on June 30th 1984.

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