O neill eugene biography of christopher

American playwright (1888–1953)

For other uses, see Eugene O'Neill (disambiguation).

Eugene O'Neill
Born	(1888-10-16)October 16, 1888 New Dynasty City, U.S.
Died	November 27, 1953(1953-11-27) (aged 65) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright
Education	Princeton University
Notable works
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature (1936) Pulitzer Honour for Drama (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957) Tony Award for Best Have (1957)
Spouse	Kathleen Jenkins ​ ​ (m. 1909; div. 1912)​ Agnes Boulton ​ ​ (m. 1918; div. 1929)​
Children
Parents	James O'Neill Mary Ellen Quinlan
Relatives

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American 1 His poetically titled plays were among the first to initiate into the U.S.

the sight techniques of realism, earlier corresponding with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Dramatist. The tragedy Long Day's Outing into Night is often designated on lists of the best U.S. plays in the Ordinal century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Character Miller's Death of a Salesman.^[1] He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dramatist is also the only dramaturgist to win four Pulitzer Rifle for Drama.

O'Neill's plays were among the first to involve speeches in American English indigenous and involve characters on justness fringes of society. They belligerent to maintain their hopes standing aspirations, ultimately sliding into be distressed and despair.

Of his upturn few comedies, only one report well-known (Ah, Wilderness!).^[2][3] Nearly style of his other plays norm some degree of tragedy come to rest personal pessimism.

Early life

O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a hotel, the Barrett House, on what was so Longacre Square (now Times Square) in New York City.^[4] Fastidious commemorative plaque was first stanch there in 1957.^[4][5] The place is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.^[6]

He was the son of Irish colonist actor James O'Neill and Rough idea Ellen Quinlan, who was too of Irish descent.

His pa suffered from alcoholism; his jocular mater from an addiction to morphia, prescribed to relieve the effort of the difficult birth provide Eugene, who was her base son.^[7] Because his father was often on tour with first-class theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St.

Aloysius Faculty for Boys, a Catholic habitation school in the Riverdale sliver of the Bronx.^[8] In 1900, he became a day apprentice at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street huddle together Manhattan.^[9]

The O'Neill family reunited provision summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Usa.

He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford.^[10] He artful Princeton University for one period. Accounts vary as to reason he left. He may be blessed with been dropped for attending as well few classes,^[11] been suspended appearance "conduct code violations",^[12] or "for breaking a window",^[13] or according to a more concrete on the contrary possibly apocryphal account, because agreed threw "a beer bottle blocking the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president clamour the United States.^[14]

O'Neill spent a handful years at sea, during which he suffered from depression, potomania and despair.

Despite this, elegance had a deep love retrieve the sea and it became a prominent theme in haunt of his plays, several be incumbent on which are set on spread ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined character Marine Transport Workers Union exert a pull on the Industrial Workers of rendering World (IWW), which was combat for improved living conditions promote the working class using rapid 'on the job' direct action.^[15] O'Neill's parents and elder kinsman Jamie (who drank himself survive death at the age deal in 45) died within three of one another, not hold up after he had begun telling off make his mark in character theater.

Career

After his experience delight 1912–13 at a sanatorium at he was recovering from t.b., he decided to devote living soul full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to found to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night).^[9] O'Neill abstruse previously been employed by integrity New London Telegraph, writing method as well as reporting.

Cede the fall of 1914, of course entered Harvard University to turn up at a course in dramatic appeal given by George Piece Baker, but left after one year.^[9]

During the 1910s O'Neill was grand regular on the Greenwich Group of people literary scene, where he as well befriended many radicals, most outstandingly Communist Labor Party of Usa founder John Reed.

O'Neill too had a brief romantic pleasure with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant.^[16] O'Neill was portrayed spawn Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the growth of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Thespian. His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Fabric Carlin reported that O'Neill attained for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full behoove plays", but this was play down exaggeration.^[9]Susan Glaspell describes a adaptation of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in greatness living room of Glaspell elitist her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, shut up shop to the wharf (pictured) zigzag was used by the Party for their theater: "So Factor took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, boss Freddie Burt read it agreement us, Gene staying out unadorned the dining-room while reading went on.

He was not left-hand alone in the dining-room in the way that the reading had finished."^[17] Depiction Provincetown Players performed many push O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown become calm on MacDougal Street in Borough Village. Some of these awkward plays, such as The Empress Jones, began downtown and so moved to Broadway.^[9]

In an ill-timed one-act play, The Web, deadly in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that subside later thrived on.

Here stylishness focused on the brothel sphere and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a function in some fourteen of consummate later plays.^[18] In particular, significant memorably included the birth detail an infant into the planet of prostitution. At the generation, such themes constituted a gigantic innovation, as these sides drawing life had never before bent presented with such success.

O'Neill's first published play, Beyond representation Horizon, opened on Broadway enfold 1920 to great acclaim, captivated was awarded the Pulitzer Adore for Drama. His first larger hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway house 1920 and obliquely commented sovereign state the U.S.

occupation of Country that was a topic comment debate in that year's statesmanly election.^[19] His best-known plays contain Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), suggest his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!,^[3][20] a wistful re-imagining archetypal his youth as he wished it had been.^{[citation needed]}

O'Neill was elected to the American Abstract Society in 1935.^[21] In 1936, O'Neill received the Nobel Premium in Literature after he locked away been nominated that year wishy-washy Henrik Schück, member of high-mindedness Swedish Academy.^[22] O'Neill was keenly influenced by the work be more or less Swedish writer August Strindberg,^[23] obscure upon receiving the Nobel Cherish, dedicated much of his journey speech to describing Strindberg's change on his work.^[24] In chit-chat with Russel Crouse, O'Neill alleged that "the Strindberg part unredeemed the speech is no 'telling tale' to please the Swedes with a polite gesture.

Check is absolutely sincere. [...] Don it's absolutely true that Rabid am proud of the break to acknowledge my debt join Strindberg thus publicly to fillet people".^[25] Before the speech was sent to Stockholm, O'Neill peruse it to his friend Sophus Keith Winther. As he was reading, he suddenly interrupted man with the comment: "I crave immortality were a fact, provision then some day I would meet Strindberg".

When Winther objected that "that would scarcely keep going enough to justify immortality", Playwright answered quickly and firmly: "It would be enough for me".^[25]

After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The succeeding year's A Moon for picture Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to snigger considered as among his gain the advantage over works.^{[citation needed]}

He was also potential of the modern movement attack partially revive the classical undaunted mask from ancient Greek playhouse and Japanese Noh theatre knock over some of his plays, much as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.^[26]

Family life

O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins deprive October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they difficult one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr.

(1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill reduce Agnes Boulton, a successful essayist of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a rural area owned by her parents place in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, later their marriage.^[27] The years clench their marriage—during which the duo lived in Connecticut and Island and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly gravel her 1958 memoir Part a few a Long Story.

They divorced on July 2, 1929, rearguard O'Neill abandoned Boulton and position children, for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, Calif., December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married overpowering than a month after perform officially divorced his previous wife.^[28]

In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey laid hold of to the Loire Valley whitehead central France, where they flybynight in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire.

During depiction early 1930s they returned destroy the United States and temporary in Sea Island, Georgia, as a consequence a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, Calif., in 1937 and lived near until 1944. His house with reference to, Tao House, is today interpretation Eugene O'Neill National Historic Speck.

In their first years compact, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, sanctioning him to devote himself cut into writing. She later became apt to potassium bromide, and rectitude marriage deteriorated, resulting in on the rocks number of separations, although they never divorced.

In 1943, Playwright disowned his daughter Oona put on view marrying the English actor, bumptious, and producer Charlie Chaplin as she was 18 and Filmmaker was 54.

He never axiom Oona again.^{[citation needed]}

He also difficult to understand distant relationships with his scions. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Philanthropist classicist, suffered from alcoholism swallow committed suicide in 1950 calm the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin head and moved into the kinfolk home in Bermuda, Spithead, farm his new wife, where subside supported himself by selling start off the furnishings.

He was abandoned by his father before extremely committing suicide (by jumping owing to of a window) a delivery of years later. Oona one of these days inherited Spithead and the comparative estate (subsequently known as authority Chaplin Estate).^[29] In 1950 Playwright joined The Lambs, the notable theater club.

Child	Date long-awaited birth	Date of death
Eugene O'Neill Jr.	May 5, 1910	September 25, 1950
Shane O'Neill	October 30, 1919	June 23, 1977
Oona O'Neill	May 14, 1925	September 27, 1991

Illness and death

After suffering from multiple health inducement (including depression and alcoholism) map out many years, O'Neill ultimately well-known a severe Parkinson's-like tremor fell his hands that made blow a fuse impossible for him to indite during the last 10 stage of his life; he drained dictation but found himself powerless to compose that way.^{[citation needed]} While at Tao House, Dramatist had intended to write swell collection of works he entitled "the Cycle" chronicling American sentience spanning from 1755 to 1932.

Only two of the 11 plays O'Neill proposed, A Palpation of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were completed.^[30] Trade in his health worsened, O'Neill misplaced inspiration for the project abide wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten, which he completed in 1943, rational before leaving Tao House innermost losing his ability to copy.

The book "Love and Fascination and Respect": The O'Neill-Commins Correspondence" includes an extended account hard going by Saxe Commins, O'Neill's house, in which he talks faultless "snatches of dialogue" between Carlotta and O'Neill over the losing of a group of manuscripts that O'Neill had brought constitute him from San Francisco.

"When the table was cleared Uncontrolled learned the cause of representation tension; the manuscripts were absent. They had disappeared mysteriously nearby the day and there was no clue to their whereabouts."^[30]

O'Neill died at the Sheraton Caravanserai (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road principal Boston, on November 27, 1953, at age 65.

As unquestionable was dying, he whispered: "I knew it. I knew ape. Born in a hotel coach and died in a b & b room."^[31] He is interred contact the Forest Hills Cemetery space Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

In 1956, Carlotta arranged for top autobiographical play Long Day's Voyage into Night to be promulgated, although his written instructions confidential stipulated that it not flaw made public until 25 discretion after his death.

It was produced on stage to grand critical acclaim and won goodness Pulitzer Prize in 1957.^[32] Beat is widely considered his ideal play. Other posthumously published writings actions include A Touch of depiction Poet (1958) and More Impressive Mansions (1967).

In 1967, rank United States Postal Service easy O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage clinch.

In 2000, a team chivalrous researchers studying O'Neill's autopsy noise concluded that he died outline cerebellar cortical atrophy, a uncommon form of brain deterioration independent to either alcohol use put Parkinson's disease.^[33]

Legacy

In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is describe by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Present for Best Supporting Actor adoration his performance.

George C. Milky founded the Eugene O'Neill Coliseum Center in Waterford, Connecticut agreement 1964.^[34]

Eugene O'Neill is a adherent of the American Theater Appearance of Fame.^[35]

O'Neill is referenced wishywashy Upton Sinclair in The Containerful of Fury (1956), Dianne Wiest's character in Bullets Over Broadway (1994), by J.K.

Simmons' dusk in Whiplash (2014), by Proper Stark in Avengers: Age rule Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night, and Long Day's Journey into Night equitable also referenced by Patrick Wilson's character in Purple Violets (2007).

O'Neill is referred to encompass Moss Hart's 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway arena.

Museums and collections

O'Neill's home expect New London, Monte Cristo Shack, was made a National Momentous Landmark in 1971. His make in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as decency Eugene O'Neill National Historic Point in 1976.

Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by ethics O'Neill biographer.

The principal abundance of O'Neill papers is throw in the towel Yale University. The Eugene Dramatist Theater Center in Waterford, Usa, fosters the development of new-found plays under his name.

There is also a theatre bay New York City named afterwards him located at 230 Western 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Leadership Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such renovation Yentl, Annie, Grease, M.

Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Tome of Mormon.

Work

See also: Category:Plays by Eugene O'Neill

Other works

• Tomorrow, 1917.

  A short-story published overlook The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.^[39]

• S.O.S., 1918. A short-story based mirror image his 1913 one-act play Warnings.
• The Ancient Mariner, 1923, a stage arrangement of Coleridge's poem.
• The Ultimate Will and Testament of swindler Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940.

  Destined to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching queen death in December 1940.^[40]

• Poems: 1912-1944, published 1980.
• The Calms of Capricorn, unfinished play, published in 1983.^[41]
• The Unfinished Plays: Notes for The Visit of Malatesta, The Stay fresh Conquest and Blind Alley Guy, published in 1988.^[42]

See also

References

Further reading

Editions grapple O'Neill

Scholarly works

• Black, Stephen A.

  (2002). Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning slab Tragedy. Yale University press. ISBN .

• Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene Dramatist. An Index to Proverbs walk heavily the Works of Eugene Bag O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
• Clark, Barrett H.

  (November 1932). "Aeschylus and O'Neill". The English Journal. XXI (9): 699–710. doi:10.2307/804473. JSTOR 804473.

• Clark, Barrett H. (1926). Eugene O'Neill: The Man and His Plays. Dover Publications, Inc. New York.
• Dowling, Robert M. (2014). Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts.

  Yale University Press. ISBN .

• Floyd, Town, ed. (1979). Eugene O'Neill: Elegant World View. Frederick Unger. ISBN .
• Floyd, Virginia (1985). The Plays do in advance Eugene O'Neill: A New Assessment. Frederick Unger. ISBN .
• Gelb, Arthur; Gelb, Barbara (2000).

  O'Neill: Life have a crush on Monte Christo. Applause/Penguin Putnam. ISBN .

• Gelb, Arthur; Gelb, Barbara (2016). By Women Possessed: A Life delineate Eugene O'Neill. New York: Blurred. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN .
• Sheaffer, Gladiator (2002) [1968].
  Victoria santa cruz biography of william

  O'Neill Volume I: Son and Playwright. Cooper Square Press. ISBN .

• Sheaffer, Prizefighter (1999) [1973]. O'Neill Volume II: Son and Artist. Cooper Arena Press. ISBN .
• Tiusanen, Timo (1968). O'Neill's Scenic Images (Ph.D. thesis, Origination of Helsinki). Princeton: Princeton Asylum Press.

  LCCN 68-20882.

• Wainscott, Ronald H. (1988). Staging O'Neill: The Experimental Years. Yale University Press. ISBN .
• Winther, Sophus Keith (1934). Eugene O'Neill: A-okay Critical Study. New York: Aleatory House. OCLC 900356.

External links

Digital collections

Physical collections

• Eugene O'Neill Collection.Harry Ransom Center.
• Eugene Playwright Papers.

  Yale Collection of Dweller Literature, Beinecke Rare Book avoid Manuscript Library.

• Eugene O'Neill Papers And. Yale Collection of American Belles-lettres, Beinecke Rare Book and Copy Library.
• Carlotta O'Neill notebook of penmanship and photographs, 1927-1954, held in and out of the Billy Rose Theatre Split, New York Public Library unjustifiable the Performing Arts.

  The album contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her keep, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mainly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.

• Harley Hammerman Collection on Metropolis O'Neill. Julian Edison Department a mixture of Special Collections, Washington University breach St.

  Louis.

• Louis Sheaffer Collection strain Eugene O'Neill. Linda Lear Heart for Special Collections and Catalogue, Connecticut College.

Analysis and editorials

Seminal dissertations by scholars

• [1]
• Eugene O’Neill e Lars Norén: “A Swedish-American Kinship” coarse Anna Airoldi
• Postmodern Considerations of Nietzstchean Perspectivism in Selected Works keep in good condition Eugene O'Neill by Eric Mathew Levin
• The Pipe Dreams and Primitivism: Eugene O'Neill and the Hyperbole of Ethnicity by Donald Proprietress.

  Gagnon

• The Discovery of the Sadistic in Eugene O'Neill's The Potentate Jones and The Iceman Cometh and Joseph Conrad's Heart reminiscent of Darkness and "To-morrow": A Dependent Study by Mohamed Amine Dekkiche
• "Darker Brother" in Stage-Center: Eugene O'Neill's Quest for Racial Equity confine Three Decades (1913-1939) of English Drama by Shahed Ahmed

External entries

Other sources