O'Neill, Eugene (Gladstone)

(born Oct. 16, 1888, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Nov. 27, 1953, Boston, Mass.) U.S. playwright. The son of a touring actor, he spent an itinerant youth as a seaman, heavy drinker, and derelict, then began writing plays while recovering from tuberculosis (1912). His one-act (1916) was produced by the experimental Provincetown Players, which also staged his other early plays (1916–20). was produced on Broadway in 1920, earning him his first Pulitzer Prize. Enormously prolific, he often wrote about tortured family relationships and the conflict between idealism and materialism. Soon recognized as a major dramatist, he became widely translated and produced. His many plays of the 1920s include (1921), (1922), (1922; Pulitzer Prize), (1925), (1926), and (1928; Pulitzer Prize). Among his later plays are (1931), (1933; his only comedy), (1946), and the autobiographical (produced 1956; Pulitzer Prize), considered his masterpiece. O'Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936, the first U.S. playwright so honoured.

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