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Even people who've never seen a Tennessee Williams play know his words — and the kinds of characters who speak them. "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." — Blanche Dubois, in A Streetcar Named Desire. "Stella! ... Stella!" — tough-guy Stanley Kowalski, filled with liquor and guilt, calling to his wife from the steamy streets of New Orleans in the same play. Blanche is Stanley's sister-in-law, a faded Southern belle at once attracted to and repulsed by the brute. "He's like an animal, has an animal's habits," she tells Stella. "There's even something subhuman...

The Glass Menagerie, A Streecar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof — all plays that wouldn’t have existed if Tennessee Williams hadn’t existed first. The American playwright did more to transform 20th-century theater than anyone else, and to celebrate the 71 years of his life we bring you 71 facts about the man whose birthday falls on March 26. After the jump, learn about a schizophrenic sister, a distant father, and a lonely son who felt compelled to write. 1. While in his twenties, Williams did not handle rejection letters well. In his journal, he...

Marlon Brando may have possessed the greatest talent of any American actor of the past 100 years, but for most of his career, he wasted that talent. Charley Malloy: Look, kid, I -- how much you weigh, son? When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast. Terry Malloy: It wasn't him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night....

The Age of Rage November 13, 2003 The comedian Jackie Mason used to do a routine about visiting a psychiatrist. “You hate your father,” the shrink told him. No, Mason protested, I love my father very much. “Then you hate your mother.” No, said Mason, I love my mother. Told that he didn’t hate his brothers or sisters either, the shrink suggested, “Maybe you’ve got a cousin?” Reversing Tolstoy, the twentieth century decided that unhappy families were all alike. According to Freud, it was natural for boys to hate their fathers. And their brothers too. Phrases like Oedipus complex and...