Lillian Hellman
Speaks

Here is a profile of playwright Lillian Hellman (1905 – 1984) written shortly after the opening of her 1939 play, The Little Foxes:

“Four seasons ago when The Children’s Hour was produced, that labeling which is the destiny of every important new playwright began. “Second Ibsen”… “American Strindberg”… “1934 Chekhov”… the rumors ran. In this finest example of Miss Hellman’s highly individual contribution to the current theater, the Ibsen heritage seems most likely to win out.”

If you would like to read a 1945 profile of Hellman’s second husband, the writer Dashiel Hammett, click here.

In 1945 Hellman wrote about much of what she had seen on the W.W. II Soviet front; click here to read it

Read a 1951 profile of a future First Lady: the young Nancy Reagan.

Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…