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Hellman is somewhat out of fashion these days. A brief survey of new and used bookshops in our home town turned up a single (tatty) second hand copy of Pentimento - a tie in with Fred Zinnemann's 1977 screen adaptation Julia. Inside the front cover someone had scribbled that 'the film sucks because of what they left out - see page 139'. A quick flick to the appropriate page showed the word 'communist' underscored several times. And this reveals the real reason for her unfashionable status. Hellman was a heavyweight dramatist who wrote about serious issues and at a time when the musical has monopolised much theatre space such work struggles to find an audience. Interest in Hellman's life, however is quite considerable, as she led a life as full and as varied as Hammett's. Lillian Florence Hellman was born on June 20th, 1905 in New Orleans and although moving to New York at the age of five, she frequently returned to the South which later emerged as a setting for The Little Foxes. She spent time at New York State (where she first read Marx etc) and Columbia Universities and after her studies were completed she worked in publishing - first writing advertising copy and later as a play reader. In 1925 she met and married Arthur Kober a writer and editor who took her to France and published some of her work. She also wrote for the Herald Tribune at this time. In 1929 they moved to Hollywood where Arthur had been employed by Paramount. She met Hammett at a restaurant in the Autumn of 1930 and they immediately hit it off. Hammett liked her enthusiasm and her intellect and by this time she was unhappy with her marriage. Hellman and Kober were divorced in 1931. In 1932 she co-wrote a comedy, The Dear Queen, with Louis Kronenbeger which was never produced. The following year she started work on The Children's Hour. There has been much speculation over how much input Hammett had in Hellman's work (the same fine literary tradition that says that William Shakespeare's plays were written by Christopher Marlowe or that the mysterious Thomas Pynchon is in fact JD Sallinger), but we feel that there is no evidence that Hammett was anything other than a particularly strict editor. Hammett suggested that 'The Great Drumsheugh Case' would make a good scenario for a play - the true story of a scandal at a Scottish boarding school where a malicious pupil accused two teachers of having a lesbian affair. The play opened in November 1934 to great acclaim. Her next play Days To Come (1936), which dealt with a strike at a brush factory, was a flop and only played for seven performances. In 1937 she visited Europe attending a theatre festival in Moscow and accompanying Hemmingway for a first hand view of the Spanish Civil War. On her return she immediately got down to work on a new play: The Little Foxes. The story of an avaricious family scheming and plotting for power in a Southern town. The play opened in Baltimore in February 1939 and on its move to New York was huge success. In May of that year with the royalties from her plays she bought Hardscrabble Farm in Pleasantville, New York which served her (and Hammett) as a retreat for many years to come. Her next play Watch On The Rhine dealt with the treatment of an anti-fascist on American soil. It was produced in 1941 and was an attempt to portray the seriousness of the European war to a nation which had not yet entered the fray. It was another success. Her next production The Searching Wind (1944) also carried a strong antifascist message. Later that year Hellman was asked by Washington to visit Moscow where two of her plays were being produced. She stayed on and spent two weeks on the Eastern Front doing research for a magazine article. In 1946 she completed a 'prequel' to The Little Foxes. Set earlier, Another Part of the Forest, used the same characters as they competed with each other for power. In 1948 she returned to Europe where she interviewed Marshall Tito in Belgrade. Whilst in Paris she was taken by a staging of Nicholas Roble's Montserrat and on her return to New York she began a translation. Hellman directed the production herself which opened in the Autumn of 1949 but it was too wordy and philosophical for an American audience and failed to impress audiences. For her next production she returned to the fertile ground of the South. The The Autumn Garden features a group of characters pondering their disappointing lives from a boarding house. The play opened in spring 1951 and was a hit. The 1950's were a turbulent time. Like Hammett, in 1952 she was forced to appear before Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee and like Hammett she was also landed with an unexpected tax bill. Unlike Hammett she didn't go to jail and with no other resources at her disposal she was forced to sell Hardscrabble Farm - a bitter blow. Living with malicious slander was a major theme of The Children's Hour and so it seemed entirely contemporary to revive the production and the proceeds helped Hellman settle in New York. In 1954 Hellman set to work on another translation The Lark (adapted from L'Alouette by Jean Anouilh). Another success which enabled her to purchase some property in Martha's Vineyard. In 1956 on the heels of the success of The Lark Hellman started work on a musical version of Voltaire's Candide. By 1959 almost a decade had passed without Hellman writing an original work. Hammett again suggested the theme. Toys in the Attic is the story of a man struggling to become successful only when he gets there the people who helped him don't like him any more. The play opened in February 1960 with Jason Robards playing the lead - Robards would later play Hammett in the film Julia. In her later years Hellman concentrated on her three volumes of Autobiography, An Unfinished Woman (1969), Pentimento (1973) and Scoundrel Time (1978) which dealt with the McCarthy era. She died on 30th June 1984 of a heart attack at Martha's Vineyard. There is much detail we have omitted here, Hellman contributed to many film scripts and as we have noted elsewhere had a number of affairs besides with Hammett. LINKS The memoir Hellman wrote about Hammett
which serves as the introduction to The Big Knockover And Other
Stories can currently be read at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12676 FILMS A partial list of Hellman's screen credits includes: Julia (1977) (from the
autobiography Pentimento) Julia
with
Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Jason Robards is an Oscar nominated
portrayal of Hellman reflecting on the fate of her friend Julia who dies
at the hands of the Nazis The Little Foxes
with Bette Davis. Hellman was nominated for an academy award for her
screenplay. A tremendous portrayal of scheming and sheer greed. Directed
by William Wyler and photographed by the ever brilliant Greg Tolland.
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