Lillian Hellman: 1905-1984

Lillian Hellman was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on June 20, 1905. During most of her childhood she spent half of each year in New Orleans, in a boarding home run by her aunts, and half in New York City.

Hellman studied at New York University and Columbia University without completing a degree . In 1925 she began her writing career by reviewing books for the New York Herald Tribune. Her short stories were published in the magazine The Paris Comet.

As a playwright, Hellman first gained success with The Children's Hour, a story in which a spoiled child attacks her teachers through destructive gossip.

In 1936-37 Hellman traveled in Europe. She met Ernest Hemingway and other American writers living in Paris, visited Spain, where she witnessed the horrors of the civil war, and traveled in the Soviet Union.

In 1952 Hellman was called to appear before House of Un-American Activities. She refused to reveal the names of associates and friends in the theater who might have Communist associations, but she wasn't charged with contempt of Congress.

Hellman was blacklisted from the late 1940s to the 1960s. When her income virtually disappeared, she had to sell her home.

Hellman died on June 30, 1984.