Clifford Odets

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Clifford Odets ( July 18, 1906 - August 18, 1963) was an influential American playwright and screen writer.

Early Life and Career

Clifford Odets was born into a working-class, Jewish-American family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the age of six the family relocated to New York City (Bronx). There they achieved a moderate financial success when Mr. Odets became the owner of the printery at which he was employed. Shortly there after, Clifford took his first stage role as the Prince in his primary school’s production of Cinderella. For the rest of his childhood he was taken by the desire to become a professional actor. Odets discontinued his education after his second year of high school in order to pursue a career in acting, a decision which his parents reluctantly supported.

Odets began acting with the Drawing Room Players, a neighborhood theatre specializing in the production of one act plays. Soon after, he was employed by Harry Kemp’s Poets’ Theatre where he earned just under twenty dollars for one year of acting in performances staged in the basement of a local church. During this time Odets supplemented his income by reciting poems, performing vaudeville, and writing, announcing and producing sound effects for radio. The radio plays he produced during this time were the first experience he gained as a writer. In 1925 Odets began touring with a stock company. After being stranded in Pennsylvania when the company exhausted its funds Odets went to stay with his parents who had retired in Philadelphia.

In 1929 Clifford Odets was offered the opportunity to understudy Spencer Tracy in the Broadway production of Conflict and thus returned to New York City. While understudying Tracy he began working with the Theatre Guild as an actor in several minor roles.

Work with The Group Theatre

In 1930 Odets joined The Group Theatre, a decision that many have considered the turning point in his career. During his first year as a charter member of The Group Theatre, Odets spent a great amount of time considering the recent depression and the plight of the masses. During this time he also began writing his first play, but its completion was delayed due to the Group’s rigorous actor training program. When Odets finally finished his first play, 9-10 Eden Street, he submitted it to the Group’s directors for review. Harold Clurman reported back that the play was a “personal document” which “gave evidence of internal injury in the writer.” 9-10 Eden Street was never produced. However, Odets was not deterred. He began writing a play about Beethoven which led him to an important discovery. Odets wrote in his diary “Here I am writing the Beethoven play, which when it is finished may not even be about Beethoven. Why not write something about the Greenberg family, something I know better, something that is closer to me?” This discovery altered the way in which Odets wrote. Inspired by works such as Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, a desire to portray the truth and portray the masses as a hero, he began to write about the things he witnessed and experienced, particularly the struggles of the workers and other groups which he found to be faced with oppression.

Clifford Odets’ next three plays: Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing!, and Till the Day I Die, all produced by The Group Theatre in 1935, achieved phenomenal success. The success of Waiting for Lefty exceeded that of any of Odets’ other works. In its first year Waiting for Lefty was produced by thirty two theatre companies. The show was also banned from seven cities including Boston and Newark because of its controversial social implications. Odets was awarded the George Pierce Bake cup from Yale University for this script. Stark Young, aprominent critic of the time, said of Odets that he was “one of few American playwrights who was worth thinking about at all.”

After the success of Waiting for Lefty Odets became a primary playwright for The Group Theatre. He also received many offers to work in Hollywood which he declined for some time. Then, when his fourth produced play, Paradise Lost, failed, leaving the Group in debt, he took an offer to work in Hollywood in order to repay The Group for the financial losses that resulted from the production. Regardless of the failure of Paradise Lost Odets continued to work as a primary playwright for The Group Theatre. He wrote and produced several more shows with the Group including their last production, Clash by Night.

Later Accomplishments

After The Group Theatre disbanded Odets pursued a career in film. He wrote many screenplays and continued to write for the stage on occasion. In 1961 he received the Award of Merit Medal for Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Odets married twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. Odets had two children, Nora and Walt. He was also questioned by the House of Un-American Activities Committee but prevented himself from being blacklisted by naming names and thus continued a successful career.

Works

Stage plays:

1935- Awake and Sing!

1936- Paradise Lost

1937- Golden Boy

1938- Rocket to The Moon

1940- Night Music

1941- Clash by Night

1942- The Russian People

1949- The Big Knife

1950- The Country Girl

1954- The Flowering Peach

Screenplays:

1936- The General Died at Dawn

1944- None But the Lonely Heart

1946- Deadline at Dawn

Humoresque (co-author)

1957- The Sweet Smell of Success (co-author)

1960- The Story on Page One

1961- Wild in the Country

Sources

Miller, Gabriel. Clifford Odets. 1989. The Continuum Publishing Company. New York, NY.

Nagel, James. Critical Essays on Clifford Odets. 1991. G. K. Hall & Co. Boston, Mass.

Schuman, R. Baird. Clifford Odets. 1962. Twayne Publishers. New Haven, Conn..