Lillian Hellman Collection

Lillian Florence Hellman (1905 – 1984) was an American playwright, prose writer, memoirist and screenwriter, whose dramas frequently confronted issues of injustice, exploitation, and selfishness.

Hellman studied at New York University and Columbia University. In the 1930s, after a varied carrwe that included roles as a book reviewer, press agent, play reader, and Hollywood scenarist, she ventured into writing for Broadway. Her dramas tackled themes related to different facets of evil, such as The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, Watch on the Rhine, and The Searching Wind. During the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947-1952, Hellman appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Despite returning to Broadway in the 1950s with productions like The Autumn Garden, The Lark, Toys in the Attic, My Mother, My Father, and Me, her income suffered due to her blacklisting from the entertainment industry. Many praised Hellam for her refusal to answer questions posed by HUAC, but suspicions of her alleged Communist Party membership persisted despite her denials. In addition to her dramatic work, Hellman edited Anton Chekhov’s Selected Letters and a collection of stories and short novels, The Big Knockover, by Hammett. Starting in the late 1960s and continuing untl her passing, Hellman authored a series of popular memoirs (An Unfinished Woman, Pentimento, Maybe, and Scoundrel Time), challenged for their accuracy.