“We get people from Hollywood, lots from New York and from overseas.”
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Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence Hellman was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist, and screenwriter known for her success on Broadway as well as her communist views and political activism. She was blacklisted after her appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) at the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–1952. Although she continued to work on Broadway in the 1950s…
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culture · American dramatist and screenwriter (1905–1984) · playwright · screenwriter · writer · autobiographer · librettist · actor · journalist · dramaturge · also Lillian Hellman, Lillian Florence Hellman, Hellman
Born 20 June 1905 · Died 30 June 1984 · Q233701
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2026· 4 entries
“But, you know, until that time, I think she is just going to chill out and be in Baltimore.”
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“t say anything about Lillian Hellman because she”
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“have long been connected with Communist activities.”
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2025· 1 entry
The New York Times: Lillian Hellman
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2021· 1 entry
Yahoo: Lillian Hellman’s Classic Play ‘The Children’s Hour’ Set For Series Adaptation From Bess Wohl, Jon Robin Baitz, John Goldwyn & Anonymous Content
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1999· 1 entry
Kathy Bates directed a television film, Dash and Lilly, based on the relationship between Hellman and Hammett
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1989· 1 entry
Journalist and Ernest Hemingway'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 bef
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1984· 3 entries
Aged 79, from a heart attack near her home on Martha's Vineyard
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Died 1984-06-30.
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“I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.”
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1983· 2 entries
New York psychiatrist Muriel Gardiner claimed she was the basis for the title character in Julia and that she had never known Hellman
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“s attempt to check the facts in the novel, calling it 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”
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1980· 1 entry
Hellman published a short novel, Maybe: A Story
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1979· 1 entry
On The Dick Cavett Show, when Mary McCarthy said of Hellman's memoirs that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'
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1977· 1 entry
The New York Times critic expressed his preference for the "simple confession of error" Hellman made in Scoundrel Time for her "acquiescence in Stalinism" to what he called Trilling's excuses for her own behavior during
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1976· 4 entries
As the film was going into production, Hellman wrote about the screenplay to its producer:
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Awarded Paul Robeson Award (1976).
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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
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Hellman posed in a fur coat for the Blackglama national advertising campaign "What Becomes a Legend Most
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1975· 1 entry
Awarded Ladies' Home Journal Women of the Year (1975).
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1970· 1 entry
Awarded National Book Award (1970).
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1966· 1 entry
Edited a collection of Hammett's stories, The Big Knockover
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1965· 1 entry
Hellman wrote the screenplay for The Chase, starring Marlon Brando, based on a play and novel by Horton Foote
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1961· 2 entries
Brandeis University awarded Hellman its Creative Arts Medal for outstanding lifetime achievement and the women's division of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University gave her its Achievement Award
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Under that title, but Hellman played no role in the screenplay, having withdrawn from the project after Hammett died in 1961
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1955· 1 entry
As The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov
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1954· 1 entry
Hellman declined when asked to adapt Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) for the stage
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1952· 3 entries
Hellman wrote HUAC a letter that one historian has described as "written not to persuade the Committee, but to shape press coverage
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Hellman was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which had heard testimony that she had attended Communist Party meetings in 1937
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“written not to persuade the Committee, but to shape press coverage.”
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1950· 1 entry
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
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1949· 1 entry
Hellman adapted Emmanuel Roblès's French-language play, Montserrat, for Broadway, where it opened on October 29, with Hellman directing
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1947· 1 entry
Columbia Pictures offered Hellman a multi-year contract, which she refused because it included a clause that she viewed as an infringement on her rights of free speech and association: it required her to sign a statement
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1944· 1 entry
The head of the Passport Division of the Department of State, Ruth Shipley, cited "the present military situation" as the reason
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1942· 2 entries
Hellman was nominated for an Academy Award for her screenplay for The Little Foxes
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Hellman accompanied the production to Washington, D
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1940· 3 entries
Viewing the spread of fascism in Europe and fearing similar political developments in the U
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But she did not condemn the party or express regret for her participation in it
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When its call for a united international alliance against Hitler contradicted the Communist position at the time, following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939
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1937· 1 entry
After they had been turned on by Stalinist fighters behind their own Republican lines
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1935· 3 entries
Hellman joined the League of American Writers, whose members included Hammett, Alexander Trachtenberg of International Publishers, Frank Folsom, Louis Untermeyer, I
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Goldwyn purchased the rights to The Children's Hour for $35,000 while it still was running on Broadway
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Hellman joined the struggling Screen Writers Guild, devoted herself to recruiting new members, and proved one of its most aggressive advocates
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1930· 1 entry
For about a year Hellman earned $50 a week as a reader for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood, writing summaries of novels and periodical literature for potential screenplays
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1929· 1 entry
Traveled around Europe for a time and settled in Bonn to continue her education
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1925· 1 entry
Hellman married Arthur Kober, a playwright and press agent, although they often lived apart
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1905· 1 entry
Born 1905-06-20.
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