Maxwell Anderson

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James Maxwell Anderson (born December 15, 1888 in Atlantic , Pennsylvania , † February 28, 1959 in Stamford , Connecticut ) was an American playwright , screenwriter and librettist .

Life

Maxwell Anderson was born to William Lincoln Anderson, a traveling Baptist clergyman, and Charlotte Perihelia (Stephenson) Anderson. Because of his father's job, the family moved frequently, and Anderson attended various schools in Ohio , Iowa , North Dakota, and Pennsylvania. In 1911 he graduated from the University of North Dakota from 1914 he obtained at the Stanford University to MA

He worked first as a lecturer at Stanford University, then at Whittier College . He later gave that up for a journalistic career. He worked for numerous newspapers such as the Grand Forks Herald , the San Francisco Chronicle , the San Francisco Bulletin , then moved to New York City and wrote for The New Republic , the New York Globe and the New York World .

Anderson was passionate about words, poetry and music. In 1921 he founded Measure , a magazine devoted to verse. His first piece, White Desert , was not very successful, and further failures followed. It was not until 1924 that he achieved his first major success with rivals ( What Price Glory? ) , Which he wrote in collaboration with Laurence Stallings . This success enabled him to quit his job as a journalist and devote himself fully to writing plays. With his political drama Both Your Houses he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1933 and in 1935 he received the New York Drama Critics Award for Winterset . In the same year he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Anderson married his former classmate Margaret Haskett on August 1, 1911 in Bottineau, North Dakota . They had three sons, Quentin, Alan and Terence. Margaret died on February 22, 1933 of cancer . In October 1933, Anderson moved in with Gertrude "Mag" Higger. Their daughter Hesper , who later became a screenwriter, was born on August 2, 1934 . Mag committed suicide on March 21, 1953. Anderson remarried on June 6, 1954, Gilda Hazard.

Maxwell Anderson died on February 28, 1959 in Stamford, Connecticut, two days after suffering a stroke . After his cremation, he was buried in the Anderson Family Cemetery, Meadville Crawford County Pennsylvania.

Plays and musicals

  • 1923 - White Desert
  • 1924 - What Price Glory? , together with Laurence Stallings , German: Rivalen. A piece in 3 acts , by Carl Zuckmayer , around 1962
  • 1925 - First Flight
  • 1925 - The Buccaneer
  • 1925 - Outside Looking In , (German onlookers. 3 acts. Based on the autobiography of Jim Tully , approx. 1928)
  • 1927 - Saturday's Children
  • 1929 - Gods of the Lightning
  • 1928 - Gypsy
  • 1930 - Elizabeth the Queen
  • 1932 - Night Over Taos
  • 1933 - Both Your Houses
  • 1933 - Mary of Scotland
  • 1934 - Valley Forge
  • 1935 - Winterset (German December day. Play in three acts ), honored with the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award
  • 1936 - The Masque of Kings
  • 1936 - The Wingless Victory
  • 1936 - High Tor
  • 1937 - Star-Wagon
  • 1937 - The Feast of Ortolans
  • 1938 - Knickerbocker Holiday
  • 1938 - Second Overture
  • 1939 - Key Largo
  • 1940 - Journey to Jerusalem
  • 1941 - Candle in the Wind
  • 1941 - The Miracle of the Danube
  • 1942 - The Eve of St. Mark
  • 1942 - Your Navy
  • 1944 - Storm Operation
  • 1944 - Letter to Jackie
  • 1946 - Truckline Café
  • 1946 - Joan of Lorraine
  • 1947 - Anne of the Thousand Days
  • 1949 - Lost in the Stars (German Der weite Weg , approx. 1960)
  • 1951 - Barefoot in Athens (German Barefoot in Athens. A game about Socrates , 1955)
  • 1954 - The Bad Seed (filmed in 1955 under the title Böse Saat )
  • 1956 - High Tor
  • 1958 - The Day the Money Stopped
  • 1958 - The Golden Six

Filmography

Literary template

script

Well-known lyrics

  • " September Song " (from Knickerbocker Holiday )
  • "Lost in the Stars" (from Lost in the Stars )
  • "Cry, The Beloved Country" (from Lost in the Stars )
  • "When You're in Love"
  • "There's Nowhere to Go but Up"
  • "It Never Was You"
  • "Stay Well"
  • "Trouble Man" (from Lost in the Stars )
  • "Thousands of Miles"

Books

  • 1925 You Who Have Dreams - Poems
  • 1939 - The Essence of Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers - Essays
  • 1947 - Off Broadway Essays About the Theater - Essays
  • 1972 Notes on a Dream Poems

literature

  • Elmar Juchem: Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson. New Paths to American Music Theater, 1938–1950. Publications of the Kurt-Weill-Gesellschaft Dessau, Volume 4. Also dissertation (University of Göttingen). Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2000, 410 [424] pp., ISBN 3-476-45243-3 .
  • Alfred Weber, Siegfried Neuweiler (Ed.): American drama and theater in the 20th century = American drama and theater in the 20th century. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1975, 363 pages, ISBN 3-525-01207-1 .
  • Horst Frenz (ed.), Claus Clüver (collaboration): American dramaturgy. German by Horst Frenz, Claus Clüver and Herbert E. Herlitschka. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1962, 177 pp.
  • Martha Heasley Cox: Maxwell Anderson Bibliography. R. West, Philadelphia 1977, 117 pp., ISBN 0-8492-0529-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Members: Maxwell Anderson. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 13, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Anderson, Maxwell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Anderson, James Maxwell (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American playwright
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Atlantic , Pennsylvania, United States
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1959
Place of death Stamford , Connecticut, United States