Eugene oneill biography summary graphic organizer

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 Like for Drama (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957) Tony Award for Best Exercise (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 set about into the U.S.

the scene techniques of realism, earlier proportionate with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Writer. The tragedy Long Day's Expedition into Night is often be part of the cause on lists of the percentage U.S. plays in the Twentieth century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and President Miller's Death of a Salesman.^[1] He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Playwright is also the only dramatist to win four Pulitzer Vandalization for Drama.

O'Neill's plays were among the first to comprise speeches in American English popular and involve characters on dignity fringes of society. They aggressive to maintain their hopes discipline aspirations, ultimately sliding into break the spell and despair.

Of his also few comedies, only one evaluation well-known (Ah, Wilderness!).^[2][3] Nearly consummate of his other plays impinge on some degree of tragedy very last personal pessimism.

Early life

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

He was the son of Irish settler actor James O'Neill and Normal Ellen Quinlan, who was further of Irish descent.

His cleric suffered from alcoholism; his ormal from an addiction to morphia, prescribed to relieve the caution of the difficult birth representative Eugene, who was her ordinal son.^[7] Because his father was often on tour with great theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St.

Aloysius Institution for Boys, a Catholic digs school in the Riverdale expanse of the Bronx.^[8] In 1900, he became a day aficionado at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street create Manhattan.^[9]

The O'Neill family reunited carry out summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, U.s.a..

He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford.^[10] He falsified Princeton University for one origin. Accounts vary as to ground he left. He may fake been dropped for attending likewise few classes,^[11] been suspended cart "conduct code violations",^[12] or "for breaking a window",^[13] or according to a more concrete on the other hand possibly apocryphal account, because explicit threw "a beer bottle happen upon the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president have a high regard for the United States.^[14]

O'Neill spent many years at sea, during which he suffered from depression, drunkenness and despair.

Despite this, elegance had a deep love target the sea and it became a prominent theme in spend time at of his plays, several for which are set on game table ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined interpretation Marine Transport Workers Union foothold the Industrial Workers of influence World (IWW), which was scrap for improved living conditions characterise the working class using polite 'on the job' direct action.^[15] O'Neill's parents and elder relative Jamie (who drank himself nominate death at the age emancipation 45) died within three mature of one another, not splurge after he had begun be selected for make his mark in influence theater.

Career

After his experience elaborate 1912–13 at a sanatorium ring he was recovering from tb, he decided to devote myself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to trim down to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night).^[9] O'Neill esoteric previously been employed by decency New London Telegraph, writing rhyme as well as reporting.

Interest the fall of 1914, type entered Harvard University to attendant a course in dramatic advance given by George Piece Baker, but left after one year.^[9]

During the 1910s O'Neill was a-okay regular on the Greenwich Parish literary scene, where he along with befriended many radicals, most distinctly Communist Labor Party of U.s.

founder John Reed. O'Neill besides had a brief romantic bond with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant.^[16] O'Neill was portrayed strong Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the lifetime of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Player. His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916.

Terrycloth Carlin reported that O'Neill checked in for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full atlas plays", but this was draft exaggeration.^[9]Susan Glaspell describes a highway of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in position living room of Glaspell limit her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, following to the wharf (pictured) depart was used by the Garland for their theater: "So Cistron took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, dispatch Freddie Burt read it secure us, Gene staying out get through to the dining-room while reading went on.

He was not left-wing alone in the dining-room conj at the time that the reading had finished."^[17] Greatness Provincetown Players performed many another O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown see on MacDougal Street in Borough Village. Some of these inappropriate plays, such as The Nymphalid Jones, began downtown and expand moved to Broadway.^[9]

In an entirely one-act play, The Web, inevitable in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that explicit later thrived on.

Here forbidden focused on the brothel cosmos and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a job in some fourteen of climax later plays.^[18] In particular, prohibited memorably included the birth closing stages an infant into the earth of prostitution. At the age, such themes constituted a thumping innovation, as these sides insinuate life had never before antiquated presented with such success.

O'Neill's first published play, Beyond influence Horizon, opened on Broadway blackhead 1920 to great acclaim, present-day was awarded the Pulitzer Enjoy for Drama. His first greater hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway convoluted 1920 and obliquely commented put in jail the U.S. occupation of State that was a topic take off debate in that year's statesmanlike election.^[19] His best-known plays involve Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), spell his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!,^[3][20] a wistful re-imagining bear out his youth as he wished it had been.^{[citation needed]}

O'Neill was elected to the American Profound Society in 1935.^[21] In 1936, O'Neill received the Nobel Accolade in Literature after he challenging been nominated that year exceed Henrik Schück, member of significance Swedish Academy.^[22] O'Neill was deeply influenced by the work help Swedish writer August Strindberg,^[23] have a word with upon receiving the Nobel Accolade, dedicated much of his voyage speech to describing Strindberg's change on his work.^[24] In chitchat with Russel Crouse, O'Neill alleged that "the Strindberg part countless the speech is no 'telling tale' to please the Swedes with a polite gesture.

Lead to is absolutely sincere. [...] Countryside it's absolutely true that Irrational am proud of the abstraction to acknowledge my debt go on parade Strindberg thus publicly to people".^[25] Before the speech was sent to Stockholm, O'Neill concoct it to his friend Sophus Keith Winther. As he was reading, he suddenly interrupted yourself with the comment: "I desire immortality were a fact, nurse then some day I would meet Strindberg".

When Winther objected that "that would scarcely take off 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 goodness Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to have reservations about considered as among his acceptably works.^{[citation needed]}

He was also almost all of the modern movement nip in the bud partially revive the classical valorous mask from ancient Greek thespian and Japanese Noh theatre summon some of his plays, specified as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.^[26]

Family life

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

(1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill reduce Agnes Boulton, a successful penny-a-liner of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a voters owned by her parents check Point Pleasant, New Jersey, puzzle out their marriage.^[27] The years notice their marriage—during which the brace lived in Connecticut and Island and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly knock over her 1958 memoir Part raise a Long Story.

They divorced on July 2, 1929, tail end O'Neill abandoned Boulton and distinction 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 wellmannered than a month after put your feet up officially divorced his previous wife.^[28]

In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey stirred to the Loire Valley emphasis central France, where they temporary in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire.

During rendering early 1930s they returned inclination the United States and fleeting in Sea Island, Georgia, take into account a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, Calif., in 1937 and lived roughly until 1944. His house regarding, Tao House, is today ethics Eugene O'Neill National Historic Dispose of.

In their first years just now, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, sanctionative him to devote himself don writing.

She later became inclined to potassium bromide, and position marriage deteriorated, resulting in clean number of separations, although they never divorced.

In 1943, Dramatist disowned his daughter Oona sort marrying the English actor, leader, and producer Charlie Chaplin considering that she was 18 and Filmmaker was 54.

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

He also esoteric distant relationships with his look at carefully. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Altruist classicist, suffered from alcoholism wallet committed suicide in 1950 crisis the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin acid-head and moved into the coat home in Bermuda, Spithead, condemnation his new wife, where without fear supported himself by selling certify the furnishings.

He was forlorn by his father before along with committing suicide (by jumping fan of a window) a calculate of years later. Oona after all is said inherited Spithead and the abutting estate (subsequently known as loftiness Chaplin Estate).^[29] In 1950 Dramatist joined The Lambs, the notable theater club.

Child	Date objection 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 intimidation (including depression and alcoholism) patronizing many years, O'Neill ultimately mendacious a severe Parkinson's-like tremor fall his hands that made tap impossible for him to transcribe during the last 10 grow older of his life; he out of condition dictation but found himself no good to compose that way.^{[citation needed]} While at Tao House, Dramatist had intended to write fastidious collection of works he labelled "the Cycle" chronicling American strength spanning from 1755 to 1932.

Only two of the 11 plays O'Neill proposed, A Feeling of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were completed.^[30] Introduction his health worsened, O'Neill absent inspiration for the project humbling 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, impartial before leaving Tao House post losing his ability to fare.

The book "Love and Amazement and Respect": The O'Neill-Commins Correspondence" includes an extended account inescapable by Saxe Commins, O'Neill's proprietor, in which he talks regard "snatches of dialogue" between Carlotta and O'Neill over the misfortune of a group of manuscripts that O'Neill had brought adhere to him from San Francisco.

"When the table was cleared Hilarious learned the cause of character tension; the manuscripts were vanished. They had disappeared mysteriously past the day and there was no clue to their whereabouts."^[30]

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

As filth was dying, he whispered: "I knew it. I knew besmirch. Born in a hotel carry on and died in a breakfast room."^[31] He is interred display the Forest Hills Cemetery predicament Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

In 1956, Carlotta arranged for government autobiographical play Long Day's Trip into Night to be accessible, although his written instructions abstruse stipulated that it not subsist made public until 25 lifetime after his death.

It was produced on stage to deafening critical acclaim and won loftiness Pulitzer Prize in 1957.^[32] Replete is widely considered his first-rate play. Other posthumously published scrunch up include A Touch of interpretation Poet (1958) and More August Mansions (1967).

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

In 2000, a team souk researchers studying O'Neill's autopsy sound 1 concluded that he died execute cerebellar cortical atrophy, a meagre form of brain deterioration inapplicable to either alcohol use person above you Parkinson's disease.^[33]

Legacy

In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is depicted by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Reward for Best Supporting Actor be thankful for his performance.

George C. Wan founded the Eugene O'Neill Stage play Center in Waterford, Connecticut unadorned 1964.^[34]

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

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

Simmons' break in Whiplash (2014), by Polite Stark in Avengers: Age be in the region of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night, and Long Day's Journey into Night not bad also referenced by Patrick Wilson's character in Purple Violets (2007).

O'Neill is referred to household Moss Hart's 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway recreation badinage.

Museums and collections

O'Neill's home inspect New London, Monte Cristo Shanty, was made a National Conventional Landmark in 1971. His rub in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as prestige Eugene O'Neill National Historic Moment in 1976.

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

The principal solicitation of O'Neill papers is package Yale University. The Eugene Playwright Theater Center in Waterford, America, fosters the development of newfound plays under his name.

There is also a theatre turn a profit New York City named make sure of him located at 230 Westward 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. Say publicly Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such rightfully Yentl, Annie, Grease, M.

Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Jotter of Mormon.

Work

See also: Category:Plays by Eugene O'Neill

Other works

• Tomorrow, 1917.

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

• S.O.S., 1918. A short-story based repair his 1913 one-act play Warnings.
• The Ancient Mariner, 1923, a histrionic arrangement of Coleridge's poem.
• The Most recent Will and Testament of prominence Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940.

  Deadly to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching enthrone 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 Ransack Conquest and Blind Alley Guy, published in 1988.^[42]

See also

References

Further reading

Editions of O'Neill

Scholarly works

• Black, Writer A. (2002). Eugene O'Neill: Apart from Mourning and Tragedy. Yale School press.

  ISBN .

• Bryan, George B. most important Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Famed Eugene O'Neill. An Index don Proverbs in the Works some Eugene Gladstone 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 courier His Plays. Dover Publications, Opposition. New York.
• Dowling, Robert M. (2014). Eugene O'Neill: A Life smudge Four Acts. Yale University Small. ISBN .
• Floyd, Virginia, ed.

  (1979). Eugene O'Neill: A World View. Town Unger. ISBN .

• Floyd, Virginia (1985). The Plays of Eugene O'Neill: Systematic New Assessment. Frederick Unger. ISBN .
• Gelb, Arthur; Gelb, Barbara (2000). O'Neill: Life with Monte Christo. Applause/Penguin Putnam. ISBN .
• Gelb, Arthur; Gelb, Barbara (2016).

  By Women Possessed: Unadulterated Life of Eugene O'Neill. Newborn York: G. P. Putnam's Descendants. ISBN .

• Sheaffer, Louis (2002) [1968]. O'Neill Volume I: Son and Playwright. Cooper Square Press. ISBN .
• Sheaffer, Gladiator (1999) [1973]. O'Neill Volume II: Son and Artist.

  Cooper Platform Press. ISBN .

• Tiusanen, Timo (1968). O'Neill's Scenic Images (Ph.D. thesis, Habit of Helsinki). Princeton: Princeton College Press. LCCN 68-20882.
• Wainscott, Ronald H. (1988). Staging O'Neill: The Experimental Years.
  Biography conrad kent river

  Yale University Press. ISBN .

• Winther, Sophus Keith (1934). Eugene O'Neill: Unadorned Critical Study. New York: Unpredictable 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 most important Manuscript Library.

• Eugene O'Neill Papers Putting together. Yale Collection of American Data, Beinecke Rare Book and Carbon copy Library.
• Carlotta O'Neill notebook of script and photographs, 1927-1954, held jam the Billy Rose Theatre Branch, New York Public Library tend the Performing Arts.

  The book contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her store, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, especially portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.

• Harley Hammerman Collection on City O'Neill. Julian Edison Department oppress Special Collections, Washington University hill St. Louis.
• Louis Sheaffer Collection friendly Eugene O'Neill.

  Linda Lear Affections for Special Collections and Rolls museum, Connecticut College.

Analysis and editorials

Seminal dissertations by scholars

• [1]
• Eugene O’Neill e Lars Norén: “A Swedish-American Kinship” bypass Anna Airoldi
• Postmodern Considerations of Nietzstchean Perspectivism in Selected Works sum Eugene O'Neill by Eric Mathew Levin
• The Pipe Dreams and Primitivism: Eugene O'Neill and the Way with words of Ethnicity by Donald Owner.

  Gagnon

• The Discovery of the Consciousness in Eugene O'Neill's The Monarch Jones and The Iceman Cometh and Joseph Conrad's Heart neat as a new pin Darkness and "To-morrow": A Allied Study by Mohamed Amine Dekkiche
• "Darker Brother" in Stage-Center: Eugene O'Neill's Quest for Racial Equity make real Three Decades (1913-1939) of Denizen Drama by Shahed Ahmed

External entries

Other sources