Imdb clifford odets biography

The play borrows heavily from Communist ideology and promotes unionization as the only means to tip the scales of power away from big business and toward the worker. The play, starring future legendary film director Elia Kazan, was a huge success, thrilling its audience to the point of pandemonium. Odets also perfected the group's ambition to write plays in the authentic language of its working-class characters; his crackling, pitch-perfect dialogue brought an unprecedented level of social realism to the theater.

Odets quickly followed the success of "Waiting for Lefty" in with what many consider his masterpiece, "Awake and Sing! With the production of " Paradise Lost " that same year, Odets was hired to write screenplays in Hollywood, where he met and married actress Luise Rainer. He had numerous affairs with such actresses as Frances Farmer and Fay Wray before he and Rainer divorced in Odets's choice to open the play in medias reshis heightened dialogue style, its blatant bias towards the working class, and the fact that it was the first play on Broadway to focus entirely on a Jewish family distinguish Awake and Sing!

Odets became the Group's signature playwright with the debuts of Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing! The two one-acts Waiting for Lefty and the anti-Nazi Till the Day I Die, along with a number of other works by various imdb cliffords odets biography produced by the Group Theatre, are harsh criticisms of profiteers and exploitative economic systems during the Great Depression.

They have been dismissed by some critics as left-wing propaganda. But Waiting for Lefty is considered iconic in the agitprop genre, is widely translated and anthologized, and continues to be popular. Odets asserted that all of his plays deal with the human spirit persevering in the face of any opponent, whether or not the characters are depicted as struggling with the capitalist system.

The highly successful Golden Boy portrays a young man torn between artistic and material fulfillment. Ironically, it was the Group Theatre's biggest commercial success. From Golden Boy on, Odets's work focused more on the dynamics of interpersonal relationships as affected by the moral dilemmas of individual characters. In the Group presented Rocket to the Moona psychological play that explores the failure of human beings to fulfill their creative potential.

Leftist critics rebuked Odets for abandoning his formerly overt political stance and the play was only modestly successful. The playwright George S. Kaufman and others asked, "Odets, where is thy sting? Rocket to the Moon was followed by Night Music and Clash by Nightneither of which was successful. Except for his adaptation of Konstantin Simonov 's play The Russian People in the —43 season, Odets did not have another Broadway production until The Big Knife is an allegory about the damaging effects of fame and money on the character of the artist; it also alludes indirectly to the politics of the early Cold War period.

The play's harsh critique of Hollywood mores was interpreted as ingratitude on the part of Odets, who had by this time made a significant amount of money writing films. It ran only three months and lost money at the box office. Odets's play The Country Girl focuses on the effects of alcohol abuse on creativity and marital relations. It was a critical and box-office success and later adapted for a film starring Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly.

Both actors earned Academy Award nominations for their performances. Kelly won Best Actress for her work in the film, and screenwriter George Seaton received an Oscar for his adaptation. Odets's last play was produced on Broadway in The immediate success of Odets's early plays attracted the attention of Hollywood producers. He first went to Hollywood in early [ 34 ] to write for the screen as well as the stage.

From this point on he spent most of his life in Hollywood. His initial intention was to make money to help subsidize the Group Theatre's run of his play Paradise Lost [ 35 ] over which the critics were divided, and to help him fulfill his own financial obligations. Like most screenwriters of the time, Odets worked within the studio system until independent production companies gained prominence in the s.

Thus he often wrote drafts for films such as Rhapsody in Blue and It's a Wonderful Life that were handed off to another screenwriter or team for further development. Odets declined to be credited for many of the films on which he worked, but did accept full credit as both screenwriter and director for None but the Lonely Heartadapted from the imdb clifford odets biography by Richard Llewellyn and produced by RKO.

Odets wrote the screenplay for Sweet Smell of Successbased on the novelette and a first draft by Ernest Lehman and produced by the independent company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster. Starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, this film noir depicts the underbelly of the newspaper world. The character of J. Hunsecker, played by Lancaster, was voted the 35th most despicable villain in years of film by the American Film Institute.

Odets's dramatic style is distinguished by a kind of poetic, metaphor-laden street talk. Arthur Miller observed that, with Odets's first plays, "For the very first time in America, language itself Other hallmarks of Odets's style are his humanistic point of view, and his way of dropping the audience right into the conflict with little or no introduction.

Often character is more important than plot, reflecting the influence of Anton Chekhov. The House Committee was investigating possible subversive communist influences in Hollywood and inevitably subpoenaed Odets in April He first testified in executive session, and on May 19 and 20 he again testified, this time in public hearing. Odets had belonged to the Communist Party for less than a year, between and[ 41 ] but continued to sponsor many left-wing, progressive groups, some of which were suspected communist fronts.

He cooperated with HUAC to the extent that he responded to their questions and reiterated names of Communist Party members who had been previously cited by his friend and former Group colleague Elia Kazan. Before Kazan's final testimony in Aprilthey agreed to name each other. He also found it increasingly difficult to garner film assignments.

The negative reactions to his testimony confused him as he did not consider himself a cooperative witness. Odets was tormented by public reaction to his testimony for the rest of his life. In the early s, Odets contracted to write four of a proposed total of 13 teleplays for The Richard Boone ShowNBC's new dramatic anthology born of a plan for televised repertory theater.

He also acted as script supervisor. He died before the project came to fruition. Playwright William Gibson, a former student of Odets's when he taught at the Actors Studio, completed the play's book. Though many obituaries lamented his work in Hollywood and considered him someone who had not lived up to his promise, Kazan understood it differently.

They'd be, he assured me, the best plays of his life Everything he was against, in the beginning of his career, he wound up doing himself". Barrymore won for her performance in None But the Lonely Heart Sex -- the poor man's polo. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content. Learn more about contributing. Edit page.

Imdb clifford odets biography

More from this person. View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. Reportedly, he attempted suicide three times before the age of The theatrical approach of the Group Theater transformed Odets from a poor actor into a good playwright. While with the Group, he also joined the Communist party. As a result of his sensational writing debut inhe received many offers from Hollywood.

In he married the actress Luise Rainer. Waiting for Lefty, framed within a union meeting, is a series of indignant vignettes. Although the play has been criticized for simplistic views and characterizations, its raw power and anger are notable. Concerned with a family in the Bronx, Awake and Sing pinpoints the impact of the capitalistic economic structure on the people within it and the fraudulency involved in adjusting human lives to economic forces; the characterizations and use of symbols are well done.

Paradise Lost focuses on the bewilderment of a middle-class family as their values shift in relation to changing social forces. Viewed as a realistic work, it is unsatisfactory; assessed symbolically, it is more convincing. His next stage play, Golden Boyproved his most popular success. In selecting a career in boxing instead of in music, Joe Bonaparte goes against his nature; he becomes successful but destroys himself.

Although Golden Boy contains social observations, its orientation is toward individuals rather than politics. In it was made into a Broadway musical. Rocket to the Moon deals with loneliness and the need for love, noting how conditions within and outside man impede attaining love. When the Group Theater dissolved init had produced seven of Odets's plays.

That year, imdb clifford odets biography his divorce, Odets returned to Hollywood to write and direct films. In Odets married another actress, Betty Grayson; they had two children. In addition to his constant screen obligations including more than 15 scenarioshe continued to write for the stage. In he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities because of his earlier Communist affiliations; his performance did little to enhance his personal reputation.

Odets's wife died in He started several plays after that but failed to complete them. His last film, Wild in the Countrystarred Elvis Presley. At the time of his death in Los Angeles on Aug. The burning concern for poor workers that propelled Odets's early success became, ironically, something of an albatross. Though he had changed from his propagandistic style as early as Golden Boy and never really returned to extreme political postures in later plays, many critics had trouble accepting him on his new terms.

Further, since he had initially championed the poor, his remunerative employment in Hollywood stirred insinuations that he lacked artistic integrity.