William Inge

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William Motter Inge (May 3, 1913 – June 10, 1973) was an American playwright and novelist whose books often featured solitary protagonists in tense sexual relationships.

He had a string of memorable Broadway performances, including Picnic, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in the early 1950s.

Inge became known as the "Playwright of the Midwest" with his portraits of small-town life and settings rooted in the American heartland.

Early years

Inge was born in Independence, Kansas, and the fifth child of Maude Sarah Gibson-Inge and Luther Clay Inge. William earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech and Drama from the University of Kansas in 1935. He was a member of Sigma Nu's Nu chapter at the University of Kansas. Inge moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to study on a Master of Arts degree, but sadly dropped out later.

He served as a laborer on state highways and as a news announcer in Wichita, Kansas. He taught English and drama at Cherokee County Community High School in Columbus, Kansas, from 1937 to 1938. He taught at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, from 1938 to 1943, after returning and finishing his Master's at Peabody in 1938.

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Career

Inge began as a drama critic at the St. Louis Star-Times in 1943. Inge wrote Farther Off from Heaven (1947), which was staged at Margo Jones' Theatre in Dallas, Texas, with Tennessee Williams' encouragement. Come Back, Little Sheba, a teacher at Washington University in St. Louis from 1946 to 1949. In 1950, it appeared on Broadway for 190 performances, including Tony Awards for Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer. Shirley Booth's 1952 film version received both an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award. Willy van Hemert produced a 1955 adaptation for Dutch television, and NBC produced another TV series in 1977.) Inge's alcoholism problems became more acute during his time teaching at Washington University; in 1947, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Inge discovered the wife of a member of his AA group Lola, who by name as well as personal characteristics, was based on the person on whom one of the lead characters in Come Back, Little Sheba, "Lola." And as Comeback, Little Sheba was in a pre-Broadway run in early 1950, Inge was full of skepticism about the operation's success. In a letter to his sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, he said, "If Sheba makes it in Hartford, I think it will go on to Broadway, and if it doesn't, I think I'll be back in St. Louis." I'm not sure when I'll be back when it makes it to Broadway. Inge never had to return to St. Louis.

In 1953, Inge received the Pulitzer Prize for Picnic, a drama based on a woman he had not recognized as a small child.

Picnic enjoyed a fruitful Broadway run from February 19, 1953, to April 10, 1954. Joshua Logan directed a 1955 film version that received two Academy Awards.

The short film Glory in the Flower appeared on omnibus in 1953 with Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and James Dean.

Bus Stop, his 1955-19th play, premiered in 1955. Inge's inspiration for the boy-chasing girl came from a similar situation on a bus ride to Kansas City. It was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play, and was made into a 1956 film starring Marilyn Monroe.

In 1957, he wrote The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, an extension of his earlier Farther Off from Heaven. The play was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Play, and it was released as a film in 1960.

With Carol Haney, Warren Beatty, and Betty Field, his 1959 film A Loss of Roses was shot as The Stripper (1963), starring Joanne Woodward, Richard Beymer, and Claire Trevor, as well as a well-known Jerry Goldsmith score.

Natural Affection's misfortune to open on Broadway during the 1962 New York City newspaper strike, which lasted from December 8, 1962, to April 1, 1963. Few people were aware of the game, and less than a dozen people purchased tickets. It lasted only 36 performances, from January 31, 1963 to March 2, 1963. What theatergoers missed was a drama about fragmented families and random violence. Natural Affection was inspired by a newspaper account of a seemingly meaningless and unmotivated murder, as with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Sue Barker, a single mother, is the focus of the play (Kim Stanley). Although Sue's illegitimate son, Donnie (Gregory Rozakis), has been missing from reform school, she has started a friendship with Cadillac salesman Bernie Slovenk (Harry Guardino). Conflicts in Donnie's unexpected return to her Chicago apartment escalate, and Donnie finds himself on a collision course. A young woman Donnie encounters in the apartment hallway in the closing five minutes of the play. He lets her inside the apartment and kills her as the curtains close. composer John Lewis' made-to-order background music, which was distributed on tape recordings rather than live performance, was included in the Broadway production, and it was treated in the same way as a film score. Natural Affection's revival was a hit at The Artistic Home in Chicago in 2005. It was named by the Chicago Tribune as one of the year's best shows by John Mossman, directed by John Mossman.

The Last Pad by Inge premiered in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1972. The Last Pad's original name, The Disposal, was produced by Robert L. "Bob" Johnson and directed by Keith A. Anderson through the Southwest Ensemble Theatre. Nick Nolte, Jim Matz, Richard Elmore, and Richard Elmore appeared on the film (Elmer). Just days after Inge died by suicide, the company departed to Los Angeles and opened. The original Phoenix production was named by the Arizona Republic as the Best Play of 1972, while the Los Angeles production introduced Nolte to the film industry and catapult his subsequent film career.

The Last Pad is one of three of Inge's scripts that either have openly gay characters or explicitly mention homosexuality. The Boy in the Basement, a one-act play written in the early 1950s but not published until 1962, is his only play that explores homosexuality, with Archie in Where's Daddy. They are gay characters from 1966. Inge himself had been barred from participating in the crime.

Inge's reworking of Picnic is Summer Brave, which was produced posthumously on Broadway in 1975, as he says: he wrote:

In 2009, Inge's two dozen unperformed plays began to resurfaced. They were available for viewing, but not for copying or borrowing in the collection of his papers at Independence Community College. On May 11, 2009, One, a three-act play called Off the Main Road, was presented at the Flea Theater in New York City by Sigourney Weaver, Jay O. Sanders, and Frances Sternhagen. The Killing, a one-act play directed by José Angel Santana and starring Neal Huff and J.J. Kandel, was on display at the 59E59 Theater in New York City until August 27, 2009. It's unclear how many of these additional plays are complete. Six others were featured off the main road and The Killing at the William Inge Theater Festival in Independence, Kansas, in April 2009. Six short plays by William Inge were released in A Curious Evening.

In 1961, Inge won an Academy Award for Splendor in the Grass (Best Writing, Story, and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen). He made his film debut as a reverend. All Fall Down (1962), Inge's screenplay adaptation of James Leo Herlihy's novel, was directed by John Frankenheimer. Inge was dissatisfied with the revisions made to his screenplay for Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965), so he insists that the script be called "Walter Gage."

Inge, the script supervisor of ABC's Bus Stop TV series, an adaptation of his play, appeared in the 1960-62 television season. The series was hosted by Marilyn Maxwell as Grace Sherwood, the operator of Sherwood's Bus Station and Diner in a fictional Colorado town. It was an abbreviated version of the original Bus Stop tour on Tuesday. "Cherie" was the sixth episode of "Cherry" with Weld, Gary Lockwood, and Joseph Cotten. Robert Altman produced eight episodes, one of which, "A Lion Walks Among Us," resulted in a congressional hearing on violence. The episode, which starred Fabian Forte as a maniacal serial killer, was based on Tom Wicker's book Told By an Idiot.

In 1963, Inge and CBS met to discuss a one-hour film drama about a family in a Midwestern town. The series, which had six main characters, was planned for the 1964–65 seasons. In lieu, Inge produced Out on the Outskirts of Town, a play that was on television on November 6, 1964 as part of the Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre collection. Anne Bancroft and Jack Warden appeared in Inge's role as the town doctor. On June 25, 1965, NBC produced a repeat.

Inge wrote two books, both set in the fictional town of Freedom, Kansas. Miss Wyckoff, a high-school Latin teacher in Attlantic-Little, Brown (1970), has lost her career due to her affair with the school's black janitor. During the late 1950s, the novel's themes included spinsterhood, misogyny, sexual tension, and public humiliation. Polly Platt wrote the screenplay for Anne Heywood's 1979 film version, which starred Anne Heywood as Evelyn Wyckoff. The Shaming, The Sin, The Uncertain Yearnings, and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff were all titled in the film.

My Son is a Splendid Driver (Atlantic-Little, Brown, 1971) is an autobiographical book that follows the Hansen family from 1919 to the second half of the twentieth century. Kirkus Reviews lauded the book: Kirkus Reviews lauded it.

In the early 1970s, Inge lived in Los Angeles, where he taught playwriting at the University of California, Irvine. His last several plays were without mention or critical acclaim, and he fell into deep despair, afraid that he would never be able to write again.

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