Lillian Florence Hellman (June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984) was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway, as well as her

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

sympathies and political activism. She was blacklisted after her appearance before the

House Committee on Un-American Activities The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

(HUAC) at the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–1952. Although she continued to work on Broadway in the 1950s, her blacklisting by the American film industry caused a drop in her income. Many praised Hellman for refusing to answer questions by HUAC, but others believed, despite her denial, that she had belonged to the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

. As a playwright, Hellman had many successes on Broadway, including '' Watch on the Rhine'', '' The Autumn Garden'', '' Toys in the Attic'', '' Another Part of the Forest'', '' The Children's Hour'' and '' The Little Foxes''. She adapted her semi-autobiographical play ''The Little Foxes'' into a screenplay, which starred

Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...

. Hellman was romantically involved with fellow writer and political activist Dashiell Hammett, who also was blacklisted for 10 years; the couple never married. Beginning in the late 1960s, and continuing through to her death, Hellman turned to writing a series of popular memoirs of her colorful life and acquaintances. Hellman's accuracy was challenged in 1979 on '' The Dick Cavett Show'', when Mary McCarthy said of her memoirs that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." Hellman brought a defamation suit against McCarthy and Cavett, and during the suit, investigators found errors in Hellman's '' Pentimento.'' They said that the "Julia" section of ''Pentimento'', which had been the basis for the Oscar-winning 1977 movie of the same name, was actually based on the life of Muriel Gardiner. Martha Gellhorn, one of the most prominent war correspondents of the twentieth century, as well as

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

's third wife, said that Hellman's remembrances of Hemingway and the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

were wrong. McCarthy, Gellhorn and others accused Hellman of lying about her membership in the Communist Party and of being a committed Stalinist. The defamation suit was unresolved at the time of Hellman's death in 1984; her executors eventually withdrew the complaint. Hellman's modern-day literary reputation rests largely on the plays and screenplays from the first three decades of her career, and not on the memoirs published later in her life.

Biography

Early life and marriage

Lillian Florence Hellman was born in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family. Her mother was Julia Newhouse of Demopolis, Alabama, and her father was Max Hellman, a New Orleans shoe salesman. Julia Newhouse's parents were Sophie Marx, from a successful banking family, and Leonard Newhouse, a Demopolis liquor dealer. During most of her childhood she spent half of each year in New Orleans, in a boarding home run by her aunts, and the other half in New York City. She studied for two years at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

and then took several courses at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

. On December 31, 1925, Hellman married

Arthur Kober Arthur Kober (August 25, 1900 – June 12, 1975) was an American humorist, author, press agent, and screenwriter. He was married to the dramatist Lillian Hellman. Biography Early life Kober was born into a Jewish family in Brody, Galicia, in ...

, a playwright and press agent, although they often lived apart. In 1929, she traveled around Europe for a time and settled in Bonn to continue her education. She felt an initial attraction to a Nazi student group that advocated "a kind of socialism" until their questioning about her Jewish ties made their

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

clear, and she returned immediately to the United States. Years later she wrote, "Then for the first time in my life I thought about being a Jew."

1930s

Beginning in 1930, for about a year she earned $50 a week as a reader for

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

in Hollywood, writing summaries of novels and periodical literature for potential screenplays. Although she found the job rather dull, it created many opportunities for her to meet a greater range of creative people while she became involved in more political and artistic scenes during that time. While there she met and fell in love with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. She divorced Kober and returned to New York City in 1932. When she met Hammett in a Hollywood restaurant, she was 24 and he was 36. They maintained their relationship off and on until his death in January 1961. Hellman's drama '' The Children's Hour'' premiered on Broadway on November 24, 1934, and ran for 691 performances. It depicts a false accusation of lesbianism by a schoolgirl against two of her teachers. The falsehood is discovered, but before amends can be made one teacher is rejected by her fiancé and the other commits suicide. Following the success of ''The Children's Hour'', Hellman returned to Hollywood as a screenwriter for Goldwyn Pictures at $2,500 a week. She first collaborated on a screenplay for ''The Dark Angel'', an earlier play and silent film. Following that film's successful release in 1935, Goldwyn purchased the rights to ''The Children's Hour'' for $35,000 while it still was running on Broadway. Hellman rewrote the play to conform to the standards of the

Motion Picture Production Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...

, under which any mention of lesbianism was impossible. Instead, one schoolteacher is accused of having sex with the other's fiancé. It appeared in 1936 under the title, ''These Three''. She next wrote the screenplay for '' Dead End'' (1937), which featured the first appearance of the Dead End Kids and premiered in 1937. On May 1, 1935, Hellman joined the

League of American Writers The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1935. The group included Communist Party members, and so-called " fell ...

(1935–1943), whose members included Dashiell Hammett, Alexander Trachtenberg of International Publishers,

Frank Folsom Franklin Brewster Folsom (21 July 1907 – 30 April 1995) was an American writer of popular books, many for children and young people, on archaeology, anthropology, and other subjects – he had over 80 titles published both under his own name a ...

Louis Untermeyer Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961. Life and career Untermeyer was born in New Y ...

, I.F. Stone, Myra Page, Millen Brand, and

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are ''All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' (19 ...

. (Members were largely either Communist Party members or

fellow travelers The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...

.) Also in 1935, Hellman joined the struggling Screen Writers Guild, devoted herself to recruiting new members, and proved one of its most aggressive advocates. One of its key issues was the dictatorial way producers credited writers for their work, known as "screen credit." Hellman had received no recognition for some of her earlier projects, although she was the principal author of ''The Westerner'' (1934) and a principal contributor to '' The Melody Lingers On'' (1935). In December 1936, her play ''Days to Come'' closed its Broadway run after just seven performances. In it, she portrayed a labor dispute in a small Ohio town during which the characters try to balance the competing claims of owners and workers, both represented as valid. Communist publications denounced her failure to take sides. That same month she joined several other literary figures, including

Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker (née Rothschild; August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American poet, writer, critic, and satirist based in New York; she was known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th-century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhap ...

and Archibald MacLeish, in forming and funding Contemporary Historians, Inc., to back a film project, ''

The Spanish Earth ''The Spanish Earth'' is a 1937 anti-fascist film made during the Spanish Civil War in support of the democratically elected Republicans, whose forces included a wide range from the political left like communists, socialists, anarchists, to moder ...

'', to demonstrate support for the anti-Franco forces in the

. In March 1937, Hellman joined a group of 88 U.S. public figures in signing "An Open Letter to American Liberals" that protested an effort headed by

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...

to examine

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

's defense against his 1936 condemnation by the Soviet Union. The letter has been viewed by some critics as a defense of Stalin's Moscow Purge Trials. It charged some of Trotsky's defenders with aiming to destabilize the Soviet Union and said the Soviet Union "should be left to protect itself against treasonable plots as it saw fit." It asked U.S. liberals and progressives to unite with the Soviet Union against the growing threat of

fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and th ...

and avoid an investigation that would only fuel "the reactionary sections of the press and public" in the United States. Endorsing this view, the editors of the ''New Republic'' wrote that "there are more important questions than Trotsky's guilt." Those who signed the ''Open Letter'' called for a united front against fascism, which, in their view, required uncritical support of the Soviet Union. In October 1937, Hellman spent a few weeks in Spain to lend her support, as other writers had, to the

International Brigades The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed ...

of non-Spaniards who had joined the anti-Franco side in the

. As bombs fell on Madrid, she broadcast a report to the U.S. on Madrid Radio. In 1989, journalist and

's third wife, Martha Gellhorn, herself in Spain at that period, disputed the account of this trip in Hellman's memoirs and claimed that Hellman waited until all the witnesses were dead before describing events that never occurred. Nevertheless, Hellman had documented her trip in the ''

New Republic New Republic may refer to: Places * New Republic, California, former name of Santa Rita, Monterey County, California * New Republic (Santarem), district in the city of Santarém, Pará Countries * New Republic (Brazil), the restored civilian gove ...

'' in April 1938 as "A Day in Spain."

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, H ...

wrote admiringly of the radio broadcast in 1956. Hellman was a member of the

from 1938 to 1940, by her own account written in 1952, "a most casual member. I attended very few meetings and saw and heard nothing more than people sitting around a room talking of current events or discussing the books they had read. I drifted away from the Communist Party because I seemed to be in the wrong place. My own maverick nature was no more suitable to the political left than it had been to the conservative background from which I came."

''The Little Foxes'' and controversy

Her play '' The Little Foxes'' opened on Broadway on February 13, 1939, and ran for 410 performances. The play starred Tallulah Bankhead as Regina, and after its success on Broadway the play toured extensively in the United States. The play was Hellman's personal favorite, and by far the most commercially and critically successful play she originated. However, she had an epic feud with Bankhead when Tallulah wanted to perform for a benefit for Finnish Relief, as the USSR had recently invaded Finland. Without thinking Hellman's approval was necessary, Bankhead and the cast told the press the news of the benefit. They were shocked when Hellman and Shumlin declined to give permission for the benefit performance, citing non-intervention and anti-militarism. Bankhead told reporters, "I've adopted Spanish Loyalist orphans and sent money to China, causes for which both Mr. Shumlin and Miss Hellman were strenuous proponents ... why should heysuddenly become so insular?" Hellman countered her star: "I don't believe in that fine, lovable little Republic of Finland that everyone gets so weepy about. I've been there and it seems like a little pro-Nazi Republic to me." Bankhead, who hated Nazism and had become a strong critic of Communism since the mid 1930s

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

and for what she saw as a communist betrayal of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 ...

, was outraged by Hellman's actions and thought Hellman a moral hypocrite. Hellman had never been to Finland. Bankhead and the cast suspected that Hellman's refusal was motivated by her fanatical devotion to the Stalinist regime in Soviet Russia. Hellman and Bankhead became adversaries as a result of the feud, not speaking to each other for a quarter of a century afterwards. Hellman had aggravated the matter further by claiming that the real reason for turning down the benefit was because when the Spanish Republican government fell to Franco's fascists, Hellman and Shumlin requested that Bankhead put on a benefit for the Spanish loyalists fleeing to neighboring France, and the actress and company refused. Bankhead was further incensed by these comments, as she had helped many Spanish Republican fighters and families to flee the

in 1937, after they had been turned on by Stalinist fighters behind their own Republican lines. Hellman and Bankhead would not speak again until late 1963. Years later, drama critic Joseph Wood Krutch recounted how he and fellow critic

George Jean Nathan George Jean Nathan (February 14, 1882 – April 8, 1958) was an American drama critic and magazine editor. He worked closely with H. L. Mencken, bringing the literary magazine '' The Smart Set'' to prominence as an editor, and co-founding a ...

had shared a cab with Hellman and Bankhead:

Bankhead said: "That's the last time I act in one of your god-damned plays". Miss Hellman responded by slamming her purse against the actress's jaw. ... I decided that no self-respecting Gila monster would have behaved in that manner.

1940s

On January 9, 1940, viewing the spread of fascism in Europe and fearing similar political developments in the United States, she said at a luncheon of the American Booksellers Association: Her play '' Watch on the Rhine'' opened on Broadway on April 1, 1941, and ran for 378 performances. It won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. She wrote the play in 1940, when its call for a united international alliance against Hitler directly contradicted the Communist position at the time, following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939. Early in 1942, Hellman accompanied the production to Washington, D.C., for a benefit performance where she spoke with President Roosevelt. Hammett wrote the screenplay for the movie version that appeared in 1943. In October 1941, Hellman and

co-hosted a dinner to raise money for anti-Nazi activists imprisoned in France. New York Governor Herbert Lehman agreed to participate, but withdrew because some of the sponsoring organizations, he wrote, "have long been connected with Communist activities." Hellman replied: "I do not and I did not ask the politics of any members of the committee and there is nobody who can with honesty vouch for anybody but themselves." She assured him the funds raised would be used as promised and later provided him with a detailed accounting. The next month she wrote him: "I am sure it will make you sad and ashamed as it did me to know that, of the seven resignations out of 147 sponsors, five were Jews. Of all the peoples in the world, I think, we should be the last to hold back help, on any grounds, from those who fought for us." In 1942, Hellman received an Academy Award nomination for her screenplay for the film version of '' The Little Foxes''. Two years later, she received another nomination for her screenplay for '' The North Star'', the only original screenplay of her career. She objected to the film's production numbers that, she said, turned a village festival into "an extended opera bouffe peopled by musical comedy characters", but still told the ''New York Times'' that it was "a valuable and true picture which tells a good deal of the truth about fascism". To establish the difference between her screenplay and the film, Hellman published her screenplay in the fall of 1943. British historian Robert Conquest wrote that it was "a travesty greater than could have been shown on Soviet screens to audiences used to lies, but experienced in collective-farm conditions." In April 1944, Hellman's ''The Searching Wind'' opened on Broadway. Her third World War II project, it tells the story of an ambassador whose indecisive relations with his wife and mistress mirror the vacillation and appeasement of his professional life. She wrote the screenplay for the film version that appeared two years later. Both versions depicted the ambassador's feckless response to anti-Semitism. The conservative press noted that the play reflected none of Hellman's pro-Soviet views, and the communist response to the play was negative. Hellman's applications for a passport to travel to England in April 1943 and May 1944 were both denied because government authorities considered her "an active Communist", although in 1944 the head of the Passport Division of the Department of State, Ruth Shipley, cited "the present military situation" as the reason. In August 1944, she received a passport, indicative of government approval, for travel to Russia on a goodwill mission as a guest of

VOKS VOKS (an acronym for the Russian ''Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s zagranitsei'' — Всесоюзное общество культурной связи с заграницей, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Co ...

, the Soviet agency that handled cultural exchanges. During her visit from November 5, 1944, to January 18, 1945, she began an affair with John F. Melby, a foreign service officer, that continued as an intermittent affair for years and as a friendship for the rest of her life. In May 1946, the National Institute of Arts and Letters made Hellman a member. In November of that year, her play '' Another Part of the Forest'' premiered, directed by Hellman. It presented the same characters twenty years younger than they had appeared in ''The Little Foxes''. A

film version A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

to which Hellman did not contribute followed in 1948. In 1947, Columbia Pictures offered Hellman a multi-year contract, which she refused because the contract included a loyalty clause that she viewed as an infringement on her rights of free speech and association. It required her to sign a statement that she had never been a member of the Communist Party and would not associate with radicals or subversives, which would have required her to end her life with Hammett. Shortly thereafter,

William Wyler William Wyler (; born Willi Wyler (); July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a Swiss-German-American film director and producer who won the Academy Award for Best Director three times, those being for '' Mrs. Miniver'' (1942), '' The Best Years o ...

told her he was unable to hire her to work on a film because she was blacklisted. In November 1947, the leaders of the motion picture industry decided to deny employment to anyone who refused to answer questions posed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Following the Hollywood Ten's defiance of the committee, Hellman wrote an editorial in the December issue of ''Screen Writer'', the publication of the Screen Writers Guild. Titled "The Judas Goats", it mocked the committee and derided producers for allowing themselves to be intimidated. It said in part: Melby and Hellman corresponded regularly in the years following World War II while he held State Department assignments overseas. Their political views diverged as he came to advocate containment of communism while she was unwilling to hear criticism of the Soviet Union. They became, in one historian's view, "political strangers, occasional lovers, and mostly friends." Melby particularly objected to her support for Henry Wallace in the 1948 presidential election. In 1949, she adapted

Emmanuel Roblès Emmanuel Roblès (4 May 1914 in Oran, French Algeria – 22 February 1995 in Boulogne, Hauts-de-Seine) was a French author. He was elected a member of the Académie Goncourt in 1973. He was one of many influential "pied-noir" of his time. The ...

' French-language play, ''Montserrat'', for Broadway, where it opened on October 29. Again, Hellman directed it. It was revived again in 1961.

1950s

The play that is recognized by critics and judged by Hellman as her best, '' The Autumn Garden'', premiered in 1951. In 1952, Hellman was called to testify before House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which had heard testimony that she had attended Communist Party meetings in 1937. She initially drafted a statement that said her two-year membership in the Communist Party had ended in 1940, but she did not condemn the party nor express regret for her participation in it. Her attorney, Joseph Rauh, opposed her admission of membership on technical grounds because she had attended meetings, but never formally become a party member. He warned that the committee and the public would expect her to take a strong anti-communist stand to atone for her political past, but she refused to apologize or denounce the party. Faced with Hellman's position, Rauh devised a strategy that produced favorable press coverage and allowed her to avoid the stigma of being labeled a "Fifth Amendment Communist". On May 19, 1952, Hellman authored a letter to HUAC that one historian has described as "written not to persuade the Committee, but to shape press coverage."Haynes, p. 410 In it she explained her willingness to testify only about herself and that she did not want to claim her rights under the Fifth Amendment–"I am ready and willing to testify before the representatives of our Government as to my own actions, regardless of any risks or consequences to myself." She wrote that she found the legal requirement that she testify about others if she wanted to speak about her own actions "difficult for a layman to understand." Rauh had the letter delivered to the HUAC's chairman Rep.

John S. Wood John Stephens Wood (February 8, 1885 – September 12, 1968) was an American attorney and politician from the state of Georgia, United States. He served as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives, 1931–1935 and 1945–1953. E ...

on Monday. In public testimony before HUAC on Tuesday, May 21, 1952, Hellman answered preliminary questions about her background. When asked about attending a specific meeting at the home of Hollywood screenwriter Martin Berkeley, she refused to respond, claiming her rights under the Fifth Amendment and she referred the committee to her letter by way of explanation. The Committee responded that it had considered and rejected her request to be allowed to testify only about herself and entered her letter into the record. Hellman answered only one additional question: she denied she had ever belonged to the Communist Party. She cited the Fifth Amendment in response to several more questions and the committee dismissed her. Historian John Earl Haynes credits both Rauh's "clever tactics" and Hellman's "sense of the dramatic" for what followed the conclusion of Hellman's testimony. As the committee moved on to other business, Rauh released to the press copies of her letter to HUAC. Committee members, unprepared for close questioning about Hellman's stance, offered only offhand comments. The press reported Hellman's statement at length, its language crafted to overshadow the comments of the HUAC members. She wrote in part: Reaction divided along political lines. Murray Kempton, a longtime critic of her sympathy for communist causes, praised her: "It is enough that she has reached into her conscience for an act based on something more than the material or the tactical ... she has chosen to act like a lady." The FBI increased its surveillance of her travel and her mail. In the early 1950s, at the height of anti-communist fervor in the United States, the State Department investigated whether Melby posed a security risk. In April 1952, the department stated its one formal charge against him: "that during the period 1945 to date, you have maintained an association with one, Lillian Hellman, reliably reported to be a member of the Communist Party," based on testimony from unidentified informants. When Melby appeared before the department's Loyalty Security Board, he was not allowed to contest Hellman's Communist Party affiliation or learn who informed against her, but only to present his understanding of her politics and the nature of his relationship with her, including the occasional renewal of their physical relationship. He said he had no plans to renew their friendship, but never promised to avoid contact with her. In the course of a series of appeals, Hellman testified before the Loyalty Security Board on his behalf. She offered to answer questions about her political views and associations, but the board only allowed her to describe her relationship with Melby. She testified that she had many longstanding friendships with people of different political views and that political sympathy was not a part of those relationships. She described how her relationship with Melby changed over time and how their sexual relationship was briefly renewed in 1950 after a long hiatus: "The relationship obviously at this point was neither one thing nor the other: it was neither over nor was it not over." She said that: The State Department dismissed Melby on April 22, 1953. As was its practice, the board gave no reason for its decision. In 1954, Hellman declined when asked to adapt

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

's '' The Diary of a Young Girl'' (1952) for the stage. According to writer and director Garson Kanin, she said that the diary was "a great historical work which will probably live forever, but I couldn't be more wrong as the adapter. If I did this it would run one night because it would be deeply depressing. You need someone who has a much lighter touch" and recommended her friends, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. Hellman made an English-language adaption of Jean Anouilh's play, ''L'Alouette'', based on the trial of

Joan of Arc Joan of Arc (french: link=yes, Jeanne d'Arc, translit= �an daʁk} ; 1412 – 30 May 1431) is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the corona ...

, called '' The Lark''.

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

composed incidental music for the first production, which opened on Broadway on November 17, 1955. Hellman edited a collection of Chekhov's correspondence that appeared in 1955 as ''The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov''. Following the success of ''The Lark'', Hellman conceived of another play with incidental music, based on

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...

's '' Candide''. Bernstein convinced her to develop it as a comic operetta with a much more substantial musical component. She wrote the spoken dialogue, which many others then worked on, and wrote some lyrics as well for what became the often-revived, '' Candide''. Hellman hated the collaboration and revisions on deadline that ''Candide'' required: "I went to pieces when something had to be done quickly, because someone didn't like something, and there was no proper time to think it out ... I realized that I panicked under conditions I wasn't accustomed to."

1960s

'' Toys in the Attic'' opened on Broadway on February 25, 1960, and ran for 464 performances. It received a

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

nomination for Best Play. In this family drama set in New Orleans, money, marital infidelity, and revenge end in a woman's disfigurement. Hellman had no hand in the screenplay, which altered the drama's tone and exaggerated the characterizations, and the resulting film received bad reviews. Later that year she was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

. A second film version of ''The Children's Hour'', less successful both with critics and at the box office, appeared in 1961 under that title, but Hellman played no role in the screenplay, having withdrawn from the project following Hammett's death in 1961. In the 1961 version of ''The Children's Hour'', however, despite the continued existence of the Motion Picture Production Code, the lead characters (played by Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine) were explicitly accused of lesbianism. In 1961,

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

awarded her its Creative Arts Medal for outstanding lifetime achievement and the women's division of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at

Yeshiva University Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City."About YU
on the Yeshiva Universi ...

gave her its Achievement Award. The following year, in December 1962, Hellman was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and inducted at a May 1963 ceremony. Another play, ''My Mother, My Father, and Me'', proved unsuccessful when it was staged in March 1963. It closed after 17 performances. Hellman adapted it from Burt Blechman's novel ''How Much?'' Hellman wrote another screenplay in 1965 for '' The Chase'', starring Marlon Brando, based on a play and novel by Horton Foote. Although Hellman received sole credit for the screenplay, she worked from an earlier treatment, and producer Sam Spiegel made additional changes and altered the sequence of scenes. In 1966, she edited a collection of Hammett's stories, ''The Big Knockover''. Her introductory profile of Hammett was her first exercise in memoir writing. Hellman wrote a reminiscence of gulag-survivor Lev Kopelev, husband of her translator in Russia during 1944, to serve as the introduction to his anti-Stalinist memoirs, ''To Be Preserved Forever'', which appeared in 1976. In February 1980, she,

John Hersey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...

, and Norman Mailer wrote to Soviet authorities to protest retribution against Kopelev for his defense of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Hellman was a long-time friend of author

and served as her literary executor after her death in 1967. Hellman published her first volume of memoirs that touched upon her political, artistic, and social life, ''An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir'', in 1969, for which she received the U.S.

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The N ...

in category Arts and Letters, which was an award category from 1964 to 1976."National Book Awards – 1970"
nationalbook.org; retrieved March 10, 2012.

1970s

Lillian Helman portrait ©Lynn Gilbert 1977

In the early 1970s, Hellman taught writing for short periods at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, and

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also adm ...

in New York City. Her second volume of memoirs, '' Pentimento: A Book of Portraits'', appeared in 1973. In an interview at the time, Hellman described the difficulty of writing about the 1950s: Hellman published her third volume of memoirs, ''Scoundrel Time'', in 1976. These writings illustrated not only the exciting artistic time, but also depicted an influential tone, closely associated with the beginning of the feminist movement. In 1976, she posed in a fur coat for the Blackglama national advertising campaign "What Becomes a Legend Most?". In August of that year she was awarded the prestigious Edward MacDowell Medal for her contribution to literature. In October, she received the Paul Robeson Award from Actors' Equity. In 1976, Hellman's publisher, Little Brown, canceled its contract to publish a book of Diana Trilling's essays because Trilling refused to delete four passages critical of Hellman. When Trilling's collection appeared the next year, in 1977, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critic felt the need to posit his own preference for the "simple confession of error" Hellman made in ''Scoundrel Time'' for her "acquiescence in Stalinism" to what he described as Trilling's excuses for her own behavior during McCarthyism. Arthur L. Herman, however, later described ''Scoundrel Time'' as "breathtaking dishonesty". Hellman presented the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film at a ceremony on March 28, 1977. Greeted by a standing ovation, she said: The 1977 Oscar-winning film '' Julia'' was based on the "Julia" chapter of ''Pentimento''. On June 30, 1976, as the film was going into production, Hellman wrote about the screenplay to its producer: In a 1979 television interview, author Mary McCarthy, long Hellman's political adversary and the object of her negative literary judgment, said of Hellman that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." Hellman responded by filing a US$2,500,000 defamation suit against McCarthy, interviewer Dick Cavett, and PBS.Martinson, ''Lillian Hellman'', pp. 354–56 McCarthy in turn produced evidence she said proved that Hellman had lied in some accounts of her life. Cavett said he sympathized more with McCarthy than Hellman in the lawsuit, but "everybody lost" as a result of it. Norman Mailer attempted unsuccessfully to mediate the dispute through an open letter he published in the ''New York Times''. At the time of her death, Hellman was still in litigation with McCarthy; her executors dropped the suit.

Later years and death

In 1980, Hellman published a short novel, ''Maybe: A Story''. Though presented as fiction, Hellman, Hammett, and other real-life people appeared as characters. It received a mixed reception and was sometimes read as another installment of Hellman's memoirs. Hellman's editor wrote to the ''New York Times'' to question a reviewer's attempt to check the facts in the novel. He described it as a work of fiction whose characters misremember and dissemble. In 1983, New York psychiatrist Muriel Gardiner claimed she was the basis for the title character in ''Julia'' and that she had never known Hellman. Hellman denied the character was based on Gardiner. As the events Hellman described matched Gardiner's account of her life and Gardiner's family was closely tied to Hellman's attorney, Wolf Schwabacher, some critics believe that Hellman appropriated Gardiner's story without attribution. Hellman died on June 30, 1984, aged 79, from a heart attack near her home on

Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes th ...

"Lillian Hellman, Playwright, Author and Rebel, Dies at 79"
nytimes.com, July 1, 1984; accessed December 10, 2011. and is buried beneath a pine tree on a rise at one end of Abels Hill/Chilmark Cemetery, Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Legacy

Institutions that awarded Hellman honorary degrees include

(1955),

Wheaton College Wheaton College may refer to: * Wheaton College (Illinois), a private Christian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois * Wheaton College (Massachusetts) Wheaton College is a private liberal arts college in Norton, Massachus ...

(1960), Mt. Holyoke College (1966),

Smith College Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's c ...

(1974),Horn, ''Sourcebook'', p. 16

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

(1974), and

(1976).

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...

administers the Hellman/Hammett grant program named for the two writers. Hellman is the central character in

Peter Feibleman Peter Feibleman (August 1, 1930August 23, 2015) was an American author and screenwriter. He won critical acclaim for his novels and received multiple awards for his writings, including a Guggenheim Award in 1960 and a Golden Pen Award in 1983. He ...

's 1993 play ''Cakewalk'', which depicts his relationship with Hellman, based in turn on Feibleman's 1988 memoir of their relationship, ''Lilly'', which described "his tumultuous time as her lover, caretaker, writing partner and principal heir." In 1999,

Kathy Bates Kathleen Doyle Bates (born June 28, 1948) is an American actor and director. Known for her roles in comedic and dramatic films and television programs, she has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, includ ...

directed a television film, '' Dash and Lilly'', based on the relationship between Hellman and Hammett. Hellman's feud with Mary McCarthy formed the basis for Nora Ephron's 2002 play ''

Imaginary Friends Imaginary friends (also known as pretend friends, invisible friends or made-up friends) are a psychological and social phenomenon where a friendship or other interpersonal relationship takes place in the imagination rather than physical reality. ...

'', with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Craig Carnelia. William Wright wrote ''The Julia Wars'', based on the legal battle between Hellman and McCarthy. Chuck Palahniuk's novel '' Tell-All'' (2010) was described by Janet Maslin in the ''

'' as "a looney pipe dream that savages Lillian Hellman". Dorothy Gallagher wrote a biography of Hellman, '' Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life''.

Works

Plays

* '' The Children's Hour'' (1934) * ''Days to Come'' (1936) * '' The Little Foxes'' (1939) * '' Watch on the Rhine'' (1941) * ''The Searching Wind'' (1944) * '' Another Part of the Forest'' (1946) * ''Montserrat'' (1949) (English-language adaptation of the play by

Emmanuel Robles Immanuel ( he, עִמָּנוּאֵל, 'Īmmānū'ēl, meaning, "God is with us"; also romanized: , ; and or in Koine Greek of the New Testament) is a Hebrew name that appears in the Book of Isaiah (7:14) as a sign that God will protect the H ...

) * '' The Autumn Garden'' (1951) * '' The Lark'' (1955) (English-language adaptation of Jean Anouilh's play ''L'Alouette'') * '' Toys in the Attic'' (1960) * ''My Mother, My Father and Me'' (1963) (based on Burt Blechman's novel ''How Much?'')

Novel

* ''Maybe: A Story'' (1980)

Operetta

* '' Candide'' (1956) (book, later rewritten by Hugh Wheeler)

Screenplays

* '' The Dark Angel'' (1935) (with Mordaunt Shairp; based on the play by Guy Bolton) * '' These Three'' (1936) (based on her play ''The Children's Hour'') * '' Dead End'' (1937) (based on the play by Sidney Kingsley) * '' The Little Foxes'' (1941) (based on her play) * '' The North Star'' (1943) * '' The Searching Wind'' (1946) (based on her play) * '' The Chase'' (1966) (based on the play and novel by Horton Foote)

Memoirs

* ''An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir'' (1969) * '' Pentimento: A Book of Portraits'' (1973) * ''Scoundrel Time'' (1976) * ''Eating Together: Recipes and Recollections'', with Peter Feibleman (1984) also: * Preface to ''The Big Knockover'', a collection of Hammett's stories (1963) * ''Three'', a 1980 collection of her first three memoirs

Notes

References

*Alan Ackerman, ''Just Words: Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, and the Failure of Public Conversation in America'' (Yale University Press, 2011) *Thomas Carl Austenfeld., ''American Women Writers and the Nazis: Ethics and Politics in Boyle, Porter, Stafford, and Hellman'' (University Press of Virginia, 2001) *Jackson R. Bryer, ed., ''Conversations with Lillian Hellman'' (University Press of Mississippi, 1986), a collection of 27 interviews published between 1936 and 1981 *Bernard F. Dick, ''Hellman in Hollywood'' (East Brunswick, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982) *Peter Feibleman, ''Lilly: Reminiscences of Lillian Hellman'' (NY: Morrow, 1988) *Alice Griffin and Geraldine Thorsten, ''Understanding Lillian Hellman'' (University of South Carolina Press, 1999) *John Earl Haynes, "Hellman and the Hollywood Inquisition: The Triumph of Spin-Control over Candour," ''Film History'', vol 10, No. 3, 1998, pp. 408–14 *Barbara Lee Horn, ''Lillian Hellman: A Research and Production Sourcebook'' (Greenwood Press, 1998) *Alice Kessler-Harris, ''A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman'' (Bloomsbury Press, 2012) *Rosemary Mahoney, ''A Likely Story: One Summer With Lillian Hellman'' (NY: Doubleday, 1998) *Deborah Martinson, ''Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels'' (Counterpoint Press, 2005; ) *Joan Mellen, ''Hellman and Hammett: The Legendary Passion of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett'', (NY: HarperCollins, 1996) *Richard Moody, ''Lillian Hellman: Playwright'' (NY: Pegasus, 1972) *Robert P. Newman, ''The Cold War Romance of Lillian Hellman and John Melby'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1989) *Carl E. Rollyson, ''Lillian Hellman: Her Legend and Her Legacy'' (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1988) *Alan Barrie Spitzer, ''Historical Truth and Lies about the Past: Reflections on Dewey, Dreyfus, de Man, and Reagan'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1996), ch. 1: "John Dewey, the 'Trial' of Leon Trotsky, and the Search for Historical Truth" *William Wright, ''Lillian Hellman: The Image, the Woman'' (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1986) *Doris V. Falk, "Lillian Hellman" (Ungar; 1978)

External links

Lillian Hellman Papers
at the

* * *
“Profile: Lillian Hellman Episode 5,”
1981-04-10, The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

, American Archive of Public Broadcasting {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellman, Lillian 1905 births 1984 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent 20th-century American memoirists Screenwriters from New York (state) Hollywood blacklist American women dramatists and playwrights American Communist writers Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters National Book Award winners Writers from New Orleans People from Mount Pleasant, New York Jewish American dramatists and playwrights Writers from New York City New York University alumni Columbia University alumni American Marxist writers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American women memoirists American anti-fascists 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American screenwriters