He made his Broadway debut in 1962, with the landmark, Tony-winning Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Advertisement
Playwright Edward Albee, who helped re-invent American theater with his cleverly biting dialogue and seering portayals of the human condition, died September 16, at his Montauk, N.Y. home, his publicist announced. Denied the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the prize’s advisory board ruled that the work was not sufficiently “uplifting” because of its profanity and sexual themes, BBC reported.
He received Pulitzer Prizes – America’s most prestigious literary award – for his plays Seascape, Three Tall Women and A Delicate Balance, which was filmed in 1973 with Paul Scofield and Katherine Hepburn.
It was later made into a 1966 black-comedy movie directed by Mike Nichols and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, who won an Oscar as best actress.
Actress Mia Farrow said: “Edward Albee was one of the great playwrights of our time”.
“A writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able to transcend self”, he once remarked.
Albee continued to write into his 70s, and 2008 saw the premiere of a new play, Me, Myself and I, about identical twins. His father, Reed Albee, ran the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville theaters; his mother, Frances Albee, was a socialite and a commanding presence who kept a hold on him for much of his life.
‘I am not a gay writer.
Advertisement
His longtime partner, sculptor Jonathan Thomas, died of cancer in 2005. Their years together were “as close to a lifetime [with someone] as anybody gets”, Albee told Metro Weekly in 2011.
