Edward Albee - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/","20170606155748","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1496764668"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Edward Albee - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="Edward Albee exploded onto the theater scene at the end of the 1950s with plays that foreshadowed the turbulence of the decades to come. Adopted as an infant, he rebelled against his socially prominent adoptive family, and fled to Greenwich Village to pursue a literary career. His 1959 play The Zoo Story and 1960's The Death of Bessie Smith won him an early reputation as a fearless observer of human alienation and the American scene. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf provoked an unprecedented controversy in 1962 when the trustees of the Pulitzer Prize Committee overrode the judgment of their own drama jury to deny Albee the award, but Albee's unblinking portrait of a tortured marriage has long since become an undisputed classic of world drama. The Pulitzer Committee soon honored Albee for another family drama, A Delicate Balance, in 1966, and awarded him a second prize for Seascape in 1975. While the Broadway stage turned away from serious drama in the 1980s, Albee ignored the fads of the moment and maintained his own high standards. Three Tall Women enjoyed a sold-out New York run in 1994 and earned him his third Pulitzer. His 2002 success, The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, once again demonstrated his unique gift for treating the most unusual and disturbing matter with clear-eyed humor and humanity. And more than 40 years after its premiere, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was back on Broadway, as powerful as ever."/> <meta name="robots" content="noodp"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Edward Albee - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Edward Albee exploded onto the theater scene at the end of the 1950s with plays that foreshadowed the turbulence of the decades to come. Adopted as an infant, he rebelled against his socially prominent adoptive family, and fled to Greenwich Village to pursue a literary career. His 1959 play <i>The Zoo Story </i>and 1960's <i>The Death of Bessie Smith</i> won him an early reputation as a fearless observer of human alienation and the American scene.</p> <p class="inputText"><i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> provoked an unprecedented controversy in 1962 when the trustees of the Pulitzer Prize Committee overrode the judgment of their own drama jury to deny Albee the award, but Albee's unblinking portrait of a tortured marriage has long since become an undisputed classic of world drama. The Pulitzer Committee soon honored Albee for another family drama, <i>A Delicate Balance</i>, in 1966, and awarded him a second prize for <i>Seascape</i> in 1975.</p> <p class="inputText">While the Broadway stage turned away from serious drama in the 1980s, Albee ignored the fads of the moment and maintained his own high standards. <i>Three Tall Women</i> enjoyed a sold-out New York run in 1994 and earned him his third Pulitzer. His 2002 success, <i>The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?</i>, once again demonstrated his unique gift for treating the most unusual and disturbing matter with clear-eyed humor and humanity. And more than 40 years after its premiere, <i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> was back on Broadway, as powerful as ever.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-albee/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/albee-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Edward Albee exploded onto the theater scene at the end of the 1950s with plays that foreshadowed the turbulence of the decades to come. Adopted as an infant, he rebelled against his socially prominent adoptive family, and fled to Greenwich Village to pursue a literary career. His 1959 play <i>The Zoo Story </i>and 1960's <i>The Death of Bessie Smith</i> won him an early reputation as a fearless observer of human alienation and the American scene.</p> <p class="inputText"><i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> provoked an unprecedented controversy in 1962 when the trustees of the Pulitzer Prize Committee overrode the judgment of their own drama jury to deny Albee the award, but Albee's unblinking portrait of a tortured marriage has long since become an undisputed classic of world drama. The Pulitzer Committee soon honored Albee for another family drama, <i>A Delicate Balance</i>, in 1966, and awarded him a second prize for <i>Seascape</i> in 1975.</p> <p class="inputText">While the Broadway stage turned away from serious drama in the 1980s, Albee ignored the fads of the moment and maintained his own high standards. <i>Three Tall Women</i> enjoyed a sold-out New York run in 1994 and earned him his third Pulitzer. His 2002 success, <i>The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?</i>, once again demonstrated his unique gift for treating the most unusual and disturbing matter with clear-eyed humor and humanity. And more than 40 years after its premiere, <i>Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> was back on Broadway, as powerful as ever.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Edward Albee - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/albee-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/>  <link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://s.w.org/"/> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/web/20170606155748cs_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/dist/styles/main-2a51bc91cb.css"> </head> <body class="achiever-template-default single single-achiever postid-1838 edward-albee sidebar-primary">  <header class="main-header bg-black"> <div class="search-container clearfix"> <div class="container"> <a class="brand" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/"> <img class="logo" 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</div> </div> </header> <div class="" role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/albee-Feature-Image-2800x1120-380x152.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/albee-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/albee-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Edward Albee</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Three Pulitzer Prizes for Drama</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-1838 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-playwright careers-writer"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 12, 1928 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 16, 2016 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p class="inputtextfirst">Edward Albee was born Edward Harvey in Washington, D.C. At the age of two weeks, he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Reed Albee of Larchmont, New York, and renamed Edward Franklin Albee III. From an early age, Edward Albee knew that he was adopted, but he has never attempted to locate his birth parents.</p> <p class="inputtext">The Albees enjoyed wealth and social position from the family’s interest in a national chain of theaters. The Keith-Albee organization had played a dominant role in the American theater since the 19th century, from the days of vaudeville and the great touring companies and into the era of motion pictures, when the chain merged with two other companies to become Radio-Keith-Orpheum, the parent company of the RKO motion picture studio.</p> <figure id="attachment_18207" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-18207 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-18207 size-full lazyload" alt="1962: Mrs. Reed Albee and her son Edward Albee, author of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Edward Albee knew he was adopted but never attempted to locate his birth parents. (Photo by Bert Morgan/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="2894" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1-299x380.jpg 299w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1-599x760.jpg 599w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1962: Mrs. Reed Albee and her son Edward Albee, author of <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i>. Edward Albee knew he was adopted but never attempted to locate his birth parents. He channeled the unhappiness and conflicts of his youth into a series of groundbreaking Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway plays. (Bert Morgan/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Through his family’s business, Edward Albee was exposed to the theater at an early age and developed a passionate love for the arts, but his adoptive parents expected him to pursue a more conventional business or professional career. From the beginning, he found himself at odds with his adoptive family over their expectations for him and his own artistic ambitions.</p> <p class="inputtext">He was expelled from two private schools before graduating from Choate, and dropped out of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut midway through his sophomore year. At 20, he broke with his family and moved to Greenwich Village. He never saw his father again, and would not see his mother for 17 years.</p> <figure id="attachment_2813" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2813 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2813 size-full lazyload" alt="Edward Albee at work in his Greenwich Village apartment, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="2310" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003-375x380.jpg 375w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003-750x760.jpg 750w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1963: Edward Albee at work in his Greenwich Village apartment. That year, Albee earned his first Tony Award for his dark comedy <em>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</em>, one of the great theatrical treatments of the dysfunctional family<em>.</em></figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">For the next decade, Albee lived off of a small inheritance from his grandmother, supplemented by a succession of odd jobs, such as one delivering telegrams for Western Union. Enthralled with the artistic ferment of Manhattan in the 1950s, he absorbed every innovation in art, music, literature and the theater. After unsuccessful experiments with poetry and fiction, he finally found his calling in writing for the theater.</p> <p class="inputtext">At age 30, he completed his first major work, <i>The Zoo Story</i>. The play received its world premiere in Berlin, Germany in 1959, and opened Off-Broadway the following year. This startling one-act, in which a loquacious drifter meets a conventional family man on a park bench and provokes him to violence, won Albee an international reputation as a fearless observer of human alienation. Albee brought absurdism to the American stage with his one-act plays <i>The Sandbox</i> and <i>The American Dream</i>. In the same period, he dramatized America’s simmering racial conflict in a more conventionally realistic short drama, <i>The Death of Bessie Smith</i>.</p> <p class="inputtext">In only a few years, Albee emerged as the leading light of the burgeoning Off-Broadway movement. By 1962, he was ready to storm Broadway, the bastion of commercial theater in America. His first Broadway production, <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i>, was a runaway success and a critical sensation. The play received a Tony Award, and Albee was enshrined in the pantheon of American dramatists alongside Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.</p> <figure id="attachment_17412" style="width: 1918px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-17412 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-17412 size-full lazyload" alt="Melinda Dillon and Arthur Hill in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1962. (Henry Grossman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images" width="1918" height="2595" data-sizes="(max-width: 1918px) 100vw, 1918px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008.jpg 1918w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008-281x380.jpg 281w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008-562x760.jpg 562w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1962: Melinda Dillon and Arthur Hill in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee’s <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? </i>The play portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games. By the evening’s end, a stunning almost unbearable revelation provides a climax that has shocked audiences for years. It is an “obsessive reexamination of how families love and hate each other, the domestic battlefield where truth and illusion are locked in mortal combat.” Indeed, the major theme critics have gleaned from the play in the fifty years since its debut, is the concept of truth versus illusion. Edward Albee created a classic of modern drama.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">A searing evening in the company of two unhappy married couples, Albee’s play also drew its share of criticism. When the Pulitzer Prize drama panel voted to award Albee the year’s drama prize, the Pulitzer Committee overrode their choice on the grounds that the play did not represent a “wholesome” view of American life. No drama prize was awarded that year and half of the drama jurors resigned in protest. History has long since vindicated their original judgment. In the four decades since its debut, the play has been produced around the world, and is now regarded as an indispensable classic of modern drama.</p> <p class="inputtext">Albee’s adoptive father, Reed Albee, died before the success of <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i>, but in 1965, Edward Albee attempted a reconciliation with his adoptive mother, Frances. Relations between the two were never easy, but Albee worked hard at the relationship until his mother’s death in 1989. With the profits from <i>Virginia Woolf</i>, Albee created the Edward F. Albee Foundation in 1967. The foundation sponsors a summer artists’ colony in Montauk, Long Island, where the playwright makes his summer home.</p> <p class="inputtext">Albee’s work in the 1960s ranged over a wide variety of forms and styles, from straightforward literary adaptations, such as a stage version of Carson McCullers’s novel <i>Ballad of the Sad Café</i>, to frankly experimental works such as the one-acts <i>Box</i> and <i>Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung</i>. The violently anti-clerical allegory <i>Tiny Alice</i> was met with responses ranging from frank bafflement to outright hostility when it opened in 1965. Albee made one brief, unhappy foray into musical theater with an adaptation of <i>Breakfast at Tiffany’s</i>, cancelled before it even opened.</p> <figure id="attachment_2819" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2819 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2819 size-full lazyload" alt="Edward Albee in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of his play A Delicate Balance, 1967. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1710" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Edward Albee in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of his play <em>A Delicate Balance</em>, 1967.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">The Pulitzer Committee finally honored Albee in 1967 for his metaphysical drawing room drama <i>A Delicate Balance</i>. Another play dealing with two troubled couples, <i>A Delicate Balance</i> tempered the apparent realism of <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> with a faint touch of the absurdism of Albee’s early one-acts. It foreshadowed the technique of many of his later works, in which improbable situations, expressionistic devices or elements of fantasy mingle with utterly realistic characters and dialogue.</p> <p class="inputtext">For many years, Albee was unable to repeat the success he had enjoyed with <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i>, but he continued to engage difficult subject matter, as in <i>All Over</i> (1971), a stark look at death and the aging process. Albee won back the New York audience with <i>Seascape</i> in 1975, an expressionist fantasy in which two couples meet on the beach at Montauk. One couple is human; the other, a pair of anthropomorphic lizards who discuss love, relationships and the evolutionary process. As bizarre as the idea sounded on first hearing, the result was both humorous and moving. The play charmed audiences and critics and won Albee his second Pulitzer Prize.</p> <figure id="attachment_2817" style="width: 251px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><noscript><img class="wp-image-2817 size-medium " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-251x380.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-2817 size-medium lazyload" alt="Edward Albee in rehearsal for his play, The Man Who Had Three Arms, 1981. (Ray Fisher/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="251" height="380" data-sizes="(max-width: 251px) 100vw, 251px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-251x380.jpg 251w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-501x760.jpg 501w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-251x380.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Edward Albee in rehearsal for his play <em>The Man Who Had Three Arms</em>, 1981. (Ray Fisher/Time Life Pictures/Getty)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">After <i>Seascape</i>, the New York theater turned its back on Albee again. In the 1970s, he was drinking heavily and had fallen far behind in his taxes. Ready at last to curtail some of the excesses of his youth, he quit drinking and embraced a more sober and disciplined way of life. Critics and audiences remained lukewarm to his work for much of the next decade. Plays such as <i>The Lady from Dubuque</i> (1980) and <i>The Man Who Had Three Arms</i> (1983) had their admirers, but met with outright critical hostility and enjoyed only limited runs. Nearly 15 years passed without a new Albee play enjoying a successful run in New York, but Albee remained committed to the theater, serving on the board of the Dramatists’ Guild and directing revivals of some of his earlier plays.</p> <p class="inputtext">In an era of Hollywood-style “play development” by committee, Albee remained an uncompromising defender of the integrity of his own texts, and a champion of the work of younger authors. Over the years, he scrupulously reserved part of his time for the training of younger writers. He conducted regular writing workshops in New York, and from 1989 to 2003 taught playwriting at the University of Houston. He persistently asked young writers to hold themselves to the highest artistic standards, and to resist what he saw as the encroachment of commercialism on the dramatic imagination.</p> <figure id="attachment_15924" style="width: 1772px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15924 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-005.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-15924 size-full lazyload" alt="Playwright Edward Albee receives a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, June 6, 2005. (© PETER FOLEY/EPA/Corbis)" width="1772" height="2136" data-sizes="(max-width: 1772px) 100vw, 1772px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-005.jpg 1772w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-005-315x380.jpg 315w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-005-630x760.jpg 630w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-005.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Playwright Edward Albee receives a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, June 6, 2005. (Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p>Edward Albee made a triumphant comeback with <i>Three Tall Women</i> in 1994. Praised by many critics as his best play in 30 years, it struck many students of Albee’s work as a final coming to terms with the memory of his vital but domineering adoptive mother. The play won every award in sight and earned Albee his third Pulitzer Prize. In 1996, Albee was one of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors and was awarded the National Medal of Arts.</p> <p class="inputtext">Albee enjoyed a resurgence of creativity at century’s end. <i>The Play About the Baby</i> (1998), was followed by a surprising success, <i>The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?</i> (2002). The same year, Albee, a passionate art-lover, unveiled <i>Occupant</i>, a dramatic study of the sculptor Louise Nevelson. Unexpectedly, he revisited the characters of his first play, <i>The Zoo Story</i>, in a new work, <i>Homelife</i>, to be performed with <i>The Zoo Story</i> under the collective title <i>Peter and Jerry</i>.</p> <figure id="attachment_17234" style="width: 1536px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-17234 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-17234 lazyload" alt="Toni Morrison and Edward Albee at a reception before the Golden Plate Awards ceremony during the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement) " width="1536" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211.jpg 1536w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Toni Morrison, recipient of the Nobel Prize, and Edward Albee at a reception prior to the Banquet of the Golden Plate ceremonies during the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (Academy of Achievement)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">A revival of <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?</i> was one of the hits of the 2004-2005 Broadway season. Although the play had enjoyed many successful revivals over the decades, its return to Broadway in the 21st century prompted critical re-evaluation of his long career. Days after his interview with the Academy of Achievement, the American Theater Wing presented Edward Albee with a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, recognizing him as America’s greatest living playwright.</p> <figure id="attachment_17233" style="width: 1536px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-17233 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-17233 size-full lazyload" alt="The Artistic Director of New York's Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, conducted a panel discussion between the Academy's student delegates and members during the 2005 International Achievement Summit: America's foremost playwright, Edward Albee; Broadway's most honored composer, Stephen Sondheim; "Angels in America" author Tony Kushner; the distinguished stage and screen actor James Earl Jones; and two-time Oscar winners Sally Field and Denzel Washington. (© Academy of Achievement)" width="1536" height="1024" data-sizes="(max-width: 1536px) 100vw, 1536px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467.jpg 1536w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The Artistic Director of New York’s Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, conducted a panel discussion between the Academy’s student delegates and members during the 2005 International Achievement Summit: Playwright Edward Albee; Broadway’s most honored composer, Stephen Sondheim; <em>Angels in America</em> author Tony Kushner; stage and screen actor James Earl Jones; and two-time Oscar winners Sally Field and Denzel Washington.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext"><i>Peter and Jerry</i> reappeared in yet another incarnation as <i>At Home in the Zoo</i> in 2009. In a later work, <i>Me Myself and I</i>, a painfully narcissistic mother and her sons, identical twins both named Otto, struggle with troubling questions of kinship and identity. <i>Me Myself and I</i> opened at New York’s Playwrights Horizon in 2010. Admiring reviews and enthusiastic audiences confirmed that in his ninth decade, Albee’s work had lost none of its power. Edward Albee’s status as America’s greatest living playwright remained unchallenged at the time of his death in 2016.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2005 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.playwright">Playwright</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.writer">Writer</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 12, 1928 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 16, 2016 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">Edward Albee exploded onto the theater scene at the end of the 1950s with plays that foreshadowed the turbulence of the decades to come. Adopted as an infant, he rebelled against his socially prominent adoptive family, and fled to Greenwich Village to pursue a literary career. His 1959 play <i>The Zoo Story </i>and 1960’s <i>The Death of Bessie Smith</i> won him an early reputation as a fearless observer of human alienation and the American scene.</p> <p class="inputText"><i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> provoked an unprecedented controversy in 1962 when the trustees of the Pulitzer Prize Committee overrode the judgment of their own drama jury to deny Albee the award, but Albee’s unblinking portrait of a tortured marriage has long since become an undisputed classic of world drama. The Pulitzer Committee soon honored Albee for another family drama, <i>A Delicate Balance</i>, in 1966, and awarded him a second prize for <i>Seascape</i> in 1975.</p> <p class="inputText">While the Broadway stage turned away from serious drama in the 1980s, Albee ignored the fads of the moment and maintained his own high standards. <i>Three Tall Women</i> enjoyed a sold-out New York run in 1994 and earned him his third Pulitzer. His 2002 success, <i>The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?</i>, once again demonstrated his unique gift for treating the most unusual and disturbing matter with clear-eyed humor and humanity. And more than 40 years after its premiere, <i>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf</i> was back on Broadway, as powerful as ever.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/lq_eY6Ol3ZY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=1723&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_13_00_14.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_13_00_14.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement</h2> <div class="sans-2">New York City</div> <div class="sans-2">June 2, 2005</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was it like for you growing up in and around New York City as a kid?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/-HVotQrM6ho?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_01_12_10.Still001-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_01_12_10.Still001-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Edward Albee: I was an adopted kid, and I was raised by this wealthy family who had been involved in theater management — vaudeville management, the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit. And so, the house would be filled with retired vaudeville performers all the time. So, I got to meet Billy Gaxton, Victor Moore and Ed Wynn, and all those people that nobody’s ever heard of. And, I started going to the theater when I was really young. I think when I was six years old I went to see <i>Jumbo</i> at the old Hippodrome theater, that musical with Jimmy Durante and an elephant. That was my first experience in the theater. So I was raised on live theater, which was about the only good thing about the adoption.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How would you describe yourself as a kid?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Forming myself, I suppose.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/rpvsL1VsFnc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=527&end=556&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_28_04_26.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_28_04_26.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">I never felt comfortable with the adoptive parents.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I don’t think they knew how to be parents.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I probably didn’t know how to be a son, either. And, I stayed pretty much to myself.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I had a fairly active inner life.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I certainly didn’t relate to much of anything they related to. They sent me away to school when I was nine, ten years old, not to have me around.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So that was fine. It was all right.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I took care of myself.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Did you like school?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Yes, I liked school, only when I was doing the stuff that I wanted to do. I was always very, very good at the classes that interested me and very bad at the ones that didn’t. I think I knew very, very young — or at least had some inkling of — the direction that my life was going to take. I was always interested in the arts. I started painting and drawing when I was eight years old and writing poetry when I was nine or 10. I wanted to be a composer after I discovered Bach when I was 12 and a half, but that didn’t work out. He was too good!</p> <p><strong>How do you explain that? Why do you think you knew what you wanted to do at such a young age?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I don’t know. Obviously, it’s the way my mind works, or worked at the time. Those things interested me. I have no idea who my natural parents were. Back in the days when I was adopted, you weren’t allowed to find that sort of thing out. So I couldn’t. But I don’t think that matters much, anyway. Some of the brightest kids that I’ve known, I’ve met their parents and I can’t believe that there was any relationship between them.</p> <figure id="attachment_16984" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-16984 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-16984 lazyload" alt="One of the most controversial playwrights in the American theater, 35-year-old Edward Albee seems like a pensive college boy doing his homework in the dining room. Camera study of the prize-winning dramatist was made in his Greenwich Village apartment. May 4, 1963 (Bettmann/Getty)" width="2280" height="2338" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680-371x380.jpg 371w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680-741x760.jpg 741w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1963: One of the most controversial playwrights in the American theater, 35-year-old Edward Albee seems like a pensive college boy doing his homework in the dining room. The dramatist in his Greenwich Village apartment.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>When you were growing up, were there any books that were important to you? What did you read?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/nW3xONXroLU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_07_51_29.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_07_51_29.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Edward Albee: I read as much as I could. I have a funny story. The family had a big library in their huge house in Larchmont, leather-bound books. And, I was looking for a book to read one night. I was 14, maybe 13. Who was this Ivan Tur-gun-eff? Turgenev, of course. So, I took one of the books out of the library. It was </span><i style="font-size: 1rem;">Virgin Soil</i><span style="font-size: 1rem;">, as a matter of fact, and I read it. And the next morning I came down for breakfast — the family had to have breakfast together, it was a formality — and they were rather cool, I thought. I said, “What’s the matter?” They said, “There is a book missing from the library.” I said, “Yes, it’s by Ivan Tur-gun-eff, ” not pronouncing his name correctly. “And it’s a wonderful book. I took it upstairs…” “It belongs in the library. You have left a gap on the shelves.” That gives you some idea of the disparity between our points of view.</span></p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was it about your early family life that troubled you?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/tqq7CTdS9Y0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_27_31_06.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_27_31_06.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Edward Albee: I never felt that I related to these people, which may be interesting, because most kids are trapped into feeling an obligation to their natural parents. For what? For being born, I guess. Foolish notion, but still. And, since I didn’t relate to these people, and I knew that I wasn’t from them, I had a kind of objectivity about the whole relationship. This is all second-guessing, of course, but I suspect it probably was in my mind. I am a permanent transient. That’s probably where that line in <i>The Zoo Story</i> came from! “I’m a permanent transient. My home is the sickening rooming houses on the Upper West Side of New York City, which is the greatest city in the world. Amen!” I bet that’s where that line came from — in <i>The Zoo Story</i>.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You weren’t exactly a poster child for success in school, we understand.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Well — no.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/fJCEIyzEtns?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_22_03_09.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_22_03_09.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">I got thrown out of a lot of schools, yeah, because I didn’t want to be there.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I didn’t want to be home either.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I didn’t want to be anywhere I was. But, I managed to get an education before I got thrown out, in the stuff that interested me. Teachers seemed to sense that, in some terribly unformed way, there might be something going on in the mind there that should be encouraged.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>So, they would encourage me towards the things that interested me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And, that was nice. So, I’d learn something at one school, get thrown out, go to another and learn some more.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Were there teachers who influenced you? Who were important to you?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Oh sure.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/6U-gHroxmvU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_17_19_24.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_17_19_24.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">There were some teachers who were very, very helpful and, as I say, sensed that maybe I had a mind worth cultivating, and pointed me in the right direction to a lot of things.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I can’t be specific about it, but I know that was going on. These are all private schools, not public schools in the bowels of the city.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>These were private schools, a lot of wealthy kids there. But, the teachers were paid fairly well, and they were better educated than their students — which is not necessarily true in many of our public school systems now — and some bright people.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They had small classes — seven or eight kids in a class — and they could spend time finding out who the kids were. I’m very, very grateful that, even though I didn’t get along with my adoptive parents, they did offer me an extraordinarily good education.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You say you started writing poetry at eight or nine.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Yeah. I’d already started drawing before then.</p> <p><strong>What do you think motivated you to do that?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Probably because I thought I was a painter, and I thought I was a writer.</p> <p><strong>You left college early, didn’t you?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Yes, I did. It was a mutual agreement.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/3YitYjBjKm4?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=0&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_13_00_14.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_13_00_14.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">I was not going to many of the courses I was supposed to in my freshman and sophomore year.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was going to a lot of interesting courses the seniors were taking, getting a good education on a graduating level, and of course, being marked absent and failing my required courses.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>They didn’t like that.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And, they gave me a choice: go to the courses I was supposed to, or leave. So I left. I was the one being educated;<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I thought I should have some say as to the nature of my education.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Foolish notion.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>You also left home for good after that, didn’t you?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Yes, I did. I tried first when I was 13, because one of my grandmothers had given me little Christmas presents, and I had a few hundred dollars. So I went into New York with my little suitcase and tried to get on an ocean liner — Cunard, or whatever the line was — and discovered that I didn’t have enough money. Also, I didn’t have any identification or anything, and they weren’t going to let me on board the ship.</p> <figure id="attachment_2812" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-2812 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-2812 lazyload" alt="Edward Albee in 1962, the year of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="2280" height="1766" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002-380x294.jpg 380w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002-760x589.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1962: Edward Albee, master examiner of the modern condition, the year of <em>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.</em> (Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Where did you want to go?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Anywhere. London or Paris, probably Paris. But that didn’t work out. So I waited until we were so completely fed up with each other there was nothing for it.</p> <p><strong>When you left home, you went to Greenwich Village in New York City. What were you looking for?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I guess I’d been told that Greenwich Village was where whatever intellectual ferment was going on in New York was going on. That’s where all the interesting people were. So I went there.</p> <p><strong>And you found it?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Yeah. It was very easy in those days. Nobody had agents. Nobody was famous.</p> <figure id="attachment_15925" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-15925 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-006.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-15925 size-full lazyload" alt="Edward Albee, at home in Greenwich Village with his dog and his paintings, 1967. (Truman Moore/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1964" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-006.jpg 2280w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-006-380x327.jpg 380w, /web/20170606155748im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-006-760x655.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alb1-006.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Edward Albee, at home in Greenwich Village with his dog and his paintings, 1967. (Truman Moore/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>What did you do when you got there?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20170606155748if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/SbXtHjHK7e0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_15_20_10.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Albee-Edward-2005-Upscale-1of2.00_15_20_10.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="p1">Edward Albee: I completed — or not completed — <em>continued</em> my education, by going to see all the great abstract expressionist paintings, and listening to all the contemporary music up at Columbia at McMillan Theatre, going to see all the wonderful Off-Off-Broadway plays.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The paperback book market was around, so when I couldn’t steal a book I could buy it real cheap.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It was good. And, there were a lot of saloons that we all went to, all the writers. All the painters, of course, would go to the Cedar Bar, and you would go there and watch them fall down.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It was sort of nice. And, then all the writers would be going to — what was that bar on the corner of Bleecker and McDougall called?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>San Remo. Everybody would be there, sitting around talking.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And, if you wanted to be with the young composers you’d go up to the Russian Tea Room — not the Russian Tea Room — there was a bar on the southwest corner of Carnegie Hall.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I forget what it was called.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>And, all the composers would be there. We all knew each other.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Everybody was friendly.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Yeah, it was a nice time.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did you support yourself?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: One of my grandmothers had given me a tiny inheritance, which kept me in beer and sandwiches, and sharing a tiny apartment with five or six of my very close friends. And also I would take jobs from time to time. The only one I liked was delivering telegrams for Western Union. That was a good job. You’d show up when you wanted to, and if you were really clever, you could earn tips very easily.</p> <p><strong>What persuaded you — or compelled you — to become a writer?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I don’t know. I knew I was going to be involved in the arts in some fashion when I was very young. That’s why I wanted to be a composer, and did painting and drawing and writing. It just seemed inevitable to me. That’s who I was, therefore that’s what I would do. It’s just the way the mind works.</p> <p><strong>Was there a defining moment?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: No. Was it hearing Bach for the first time? Was it seeing a great painting? Was it reading Turgenev? Or all together? I can’t be sure. I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>How did your first play, <em>The Zoo Story</em>, come about?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I don’t remember. I know that I liberated a large typewriter from the Western Union company and dragged it down to the apartment I was sharing with all my friends, and just started writing this play. It took me two weeks. It’s called <em>The Zoo Story</em>. I’d been writing a lot of stuff until then. I’d made a couple of half-assed attempts at plays which I never finished, and all of a sudden I wrote <em>The Zoo Story</em>, and I had a very odd sensation: “This isn’t bad. This may even be individual.” It’s the first thing I ever wrote that I could say, “You wrote this. All the influences have been put aside, and put under. You’ve learned enough. This is your voice.” I was aware of that at the time. That was a good feeling.</p> <p><strong>It’s been written that you considered it a 30th birthday present to yourself. Is that true?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Pretty much. That may be after the fact. You know, here I was delivering telegrams at Western Union, which is okay to do if you’re a kid, but you can’t go on into your 50s doing it. You’ve got to have some other kind of career.</p> <p><strong>How do you go about it? How do you write a play?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: It’s very hard to explain to anybody who isn’t a playwright. If you’re a playwright — that’s why I was not a very good poet, and a bad novelist, and a bad short story writer. And then, I wrote a play and I figured out that’s what I was supposed to be doing all my life. And, also I just think that every writer — everybody in any of the arts — has a particular time when they can become individual. It’s different from people. You know, some people, they’re doing it when they’re 18. Some don’t get to it until they’re 50. And <em>The Zoo Story</em> was that moment where I knew I’d written something good — and individual. And you just take off from there. That’s when it happens.</p> <p><strong>Can you say what inspired it?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: <em>The Zoo Story</em>? No. No idea. In retrospect? Sure. I was obviously analyzing two opposite people: one had compromised too much on the way to adulthood, and the other was compromising nowhere at all. And there was bound to be a clash. But that’s merely plot. I don’t know, really. I never know.</p> <p>The only play that I’ve known what began it, was when I wrote a play about Bessie Smith, the great black blues singer who was allowed to die outside of Memphis in 1937, because she was black and the hospitals were white. Even there, she’s not in the play, her blood is. But, with the exception of that one, I write my plays to find out why I’m writing them — what’s going on in my head that is turning into a play. And, I become aware that it’s turning into a play, and so I write it down. So, simple and so easy and so true.</p> <p><strong>You make it sound so simple.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Well it is. I’m not one of these didactic playwrights who says, “I must now write a play about…” this or that subject, and find some characters. It comes into focus very slowly for me. When it’s sufficiently into focus, I can hear the characters, know them, and put them in their action.</p> <p><strong>How do you see the writer’s place in society?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Peripheral! Tolerated, perhaps. Writing should be useful. If it can’t instruct people a little bit more about the responsibilities of consciousness, there’s no point in doing it. But, we all write because we don’t like what we see, and we want people to be better and different. Sure, that’s why we do it.</p> <p><strong>So there is a purpose?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Of course. There’s a purpose to everything — except the Republican Party, perhaps — except possibly to teach us fear and loathing.</p> <p><strong>Are you a risk taker? Is it important to take risks as a playwright?</strong></p> <p>I don’t get up every morning and say, “Now, can I find some risks I have to take?” No. But, I don’t think I’ve compromised either. I don’t think I’ve ever said to myself, “Gee, this is going to be an unpopular subject. Maybe I’d better not write it.” Or, “Gee, maybe I’d better simplify here.” No. Nor do I do the reverse — try to make myself look better by making them more complicated. No. You write what’s in your head.</p> <p><strong>Which part of the process is more important for you, the initial writing or rewriting?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I don’t rewrite. Well, not much. I think I probably do all the rewriting that I’m going to do before I’m aware that I’m writing the play because obviously, the creativity resists — <em>resides</em> — in the unconscious, right? Probably resists the unconscious, too — resides in the unconscious. My plays, I think, are pretty much determined before I become aware of them. I think they formulated there, and then they move into the conscious mind, and then onto the page. By the time I’m willing to commit a play to paper, I pretty much know — or can trust — the characters to write the play for me. So, I don’t impose. I let them have their heads and say and do what they want, and it turns out to be a play.</p> <p><strong>With <em>Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf</em>, you won widespread recognition. It was a commercial success as well as a critical success.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: And it was my first play that was any longer than 55 minutes.</p> <p><strong>How does that affect you?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: What? That it was any longer than 55 minutes?</p> <p><strong>No, celebrity.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I’m not a celebrity. I don’t think in those terms anyway. I was delighted that people liked it. That’s fine. But they liked <em>The Zoo Story</em> and <em>An American Dream</em> and <em>The Death of Bessie Smith</em> and <em>The Sandbox</em> also. They liked those too, but this was different. This was on Broadway, therefore it was meant to be a rival — ridiculous attitudes like that. Commercial theater. You put up with that stuff.</p> <p>You know, I’ve written — what — 28 plays now. I think the majority of them had their world premieres in small theaters. And of my 28 plays, maybe no more than half have been on Broadway. And, I don’t care. Most Broadway theaters are too big. I would much prefer a 400-seat theater to a 900-seat theater anytime for my plays, which are basically chamber plays. And, I find the audiences — the smaller the theater, the more alert the audiences are, and the younger they are, and the more intelligent they are. So, I’d be perfectly happy never to have another play on Broadway, except maybe you have a responsibility to hit those people, too.</p> <p><strong>In your line of work, what gives you, personally, your greatest sense of satisfaction?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Not selling out. Not lying. Putting (my plays) down the way they want to be, and not compromising in production or casting or anything of that sort. I’ve been pretty much able to be my own person, which is nice. Maybe that was made fairly easy for me by the initial success of <em>Virginia Woolf.</em> There are all these pressures on you to sell out and do something different, but I’ve got a kind of orneriness to me: this is the play that I wrote, and this is damn well the play I want done.</p> <p><strong>Have you ever had to compromise?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: There were a couple of times where I wasn’t happy in some of the casting that I had to put up with, but no. I made one experiment. I said, “All right. Everybody tells me that this is a collaborative art.” Something that I’ve never believed, by the way. It is a creative act, and then there are people who do it for you. With one play I said, “Okay. All these people think they’re so bright. I will do whatever they want.” Without changing the text. And, I put up with a lot of stuff that I didn’t like very much, or didn’t really approve of. It was a fiasco. And, if I’m going to have a fiasco, I want it to be on my terms. I like to take my own credit and my own blame because I can make as many mistakes as the next person, you know. But, I think my mistakes are more interesting. They are to me, anyway.</p> <p><strong>How would you describe the writer’s life? What’s it take to do it?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I imagine each writer’s life is very individual. Some of us have great celebrity, others keep fairly quiet and nobody knows who we are, which is nice. Some people have commercial success, some people don’t. There is no such thing as “the writer’s life.” There is merely that time when you’re sitting upstairs, or wherever you sit, and you’re writing something. That’s very special, and probably very individual for each person, too.</p> <p><strong>For you as an individual, what did it take to write what you have written?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Ideas that come into my head that I’ve got to get out of my head. That simple. I’m a playwright, therefore I write plays. That’s what I do, that’s what I am. I think it’s true with all creative people. Some people are composers. Some people don’t get it right. You know, Henry James thought he should be a playwright. He was wrong. Arthur Miller thought he should be a novelist. He was wrong. They figured it out right.</p> <p><strong>In any career, there are setbacks, there are disappointments. How have you dealt with that?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I think you’ve got to assume that nobody promised you a rose garden. Sometimes it’s going to be okay, and sometimes it’s going to be tough. But, if you haven’t got a sufficient sense of self to surmount either failure or success, you’re in trouble. I know that some of my plays that have been least popular are some of the best ones. They’ll figure it out eventually. I’ve never lacked self confidence in my talent as a writer. This sounds wrong. It sounds terrible, but it’s true. I’ve never had doubts about my ability as a writer.</p> <p><strong>Have you ever suffered from self-doubt or fear of failure?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: No. No. No. But now that I’m getting very old there’s the possibility that my mind is going. Do you know that wonderful story about Bernard Shaw? That when he got into his 90s — I hope it’s true — he was reading one of his earlier plays one day, and he was having trouble understanding it. So, he rewrote it and simplified it so he could understand it. They had to take his work away from him because he was doing that. [Laughter] It might have helped some of them.</p> <p><strong>You don’t anticipate doing that yourself.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Oh God, I hope not! I hope they’ll take them away from me if I do that.</p> <p><strong>No matter what the field, you can’t please all the people all the time, especially when you’re subjected to reviews and criticism. How do you handle that?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Why should one be interested in doing that? Every play has its own density, its own specific gravity. Some plays are simple, some plays are more complex. Some are experimental, some are naturalistic. If you’re trying to please everybody all the time, you’re bound to fail.</p> <p><strong>So you have to have the courage of your convictions?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: You have to write the play that’s in your head, and make the assumption that your talent hasn’t collapsed, and that if people will pay attention, they might learn something.</p> <p><strong>Looking back, what do you know about achievement now that you didn’t know or understand when you were younger?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I’m not even sure I was thinking in those terms when I was starting out. I’m not even sure that I think much about them now, either. But I think it’s being able to do pretty well what you think is useful. That’s basically it. Because all art has got to be useful. If it’s merely decorative or escapist, it’s a waste of time. You write whatever you write to try to make people behave the way you want them to behave, make them think the way you think they should be thinking. If they behave themselves, good; if they don’t, tough! The achievement is holding on to that goal, I suppose.</p> <p><strong>Can you elaborate on what you mean by “useful?”</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: All art is useful because it tells us more about consciousness. It should engage us into thinking and re-evaluating, re-examining our values to find out whether the stuff we think we’ve been believing for 20 years still has any validity. Art’s got to help us understand that values change. If we’ve stopped exploring the possibilities of our mind, then we’re asleep, and why not just stay asleep? So, all art has got to be utilitarian and useful. That’s one of the great things about African art. It’s not made as art. It’s utilitarian. It’s made for religious, dance purposes. And, people who make it don’t think of themselves, “Gee, I’m a great sculptor.” No. They’re making something useful. I think this is true with novels, plays, poems. I think basically all serious creative people feel the same way. Most of us are smart enough not to talk about it.</p> <p><strong>You talk about “values.” There’s a lot of talk about values in America today. What do you make of that?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: So many words get misused all the time. I don’t think much about my values. I know what they are, if anybody pins me down. I will do whatever I possibly can to save us from the forces of darkness that are trying to take over our democracy, and that I believe we are a slowly, peacefully evolving revolutionary society. That’s what we were formed as by the merchant class, and that’s why it should be a peacefully evolving society. I try to keep us awake to the fact that democracy demands informed voting, and that democracy is fragile. And, if we don’t stay on top of things we’ll get what we deserve — as we seem to be doing right now. And I do think that all art is fundamentally political, in the large philosophical sense.</p> <p><strong>Would you say that in your work there is a message?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Probably. I hope there are a bunch of them. Participate in your own life — fully. Don’t sink back into that which is easy and safe. You’re alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn’t lived it?</p> <p><strong>When you started out, could you have imagined that you would have won three Pulitzer Prizes?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Hmmph! It’s not very many.</p> <p><strong>How important is that to you?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Look, if they’re giving out awards, it’s nice to get them. So every time I get one, I’m surprised. And every time I don’t get one, I’m surprised. I live in a constant state of surprise!</p> <p><strong>How do you measure achievement? How do you measure success?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I can’t do it in my own work, because I can’t look at my own work that way. If I read a book, go to a play, see a painting, or hear a piece of music that makes me expand the parameters of my response — makes me think differently, makes me think more completely about something — then I’ve had a useful experience. Otherwise, as I said, it’s merely decorative and a waste of time.</p> <p><strong>Is there anything you haven’t done that you would like to do?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Parachute jumping! I’d like to do that, if I could be guaranteed that the damn thing would open and I wouldn’t break both my legs when I landed. That would be fun to do. No, I would just like to keep on writing plays for awhile so that I can get better — and more useful.</p> <p><strong>Do you think there’s always room for improvement?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Always. Sure. That’s why I believe I’m getting — right now, this weekend — a thing called the Lifetime Achievement Award from Broadway, which strikes me as a little premature. I haven’t done my lifetime work yet. But I suppose they have to give it to you too early if they’re going to give it to you before you’re dead.</p> <p><strong>What idea or problem or challenge most concerns you in America in the early 21st century?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: The dangers to democracy on the part of an electorate that I think is voting far too selfishly. Most of our voting doesn’t have anything to do with what is going to be most good for the most people. It’s selfish and uninformed voting. I find that terribly dangerous. That can kill a democracy very, very quickly. I find that the inroads on civil liberties in our society are terribly dangerous. There’s never been any danger from the far left to the United States. The death of democracy is fascism, and I see us moving closer and closer to that compliance all the time, and that worries me a lot.</p> <p><strong>Will you write about that?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I think I always do, but I’m not going to write a didactic political play, because that’s a rant, and there’s no point in it. If I can just try to persuade people to stay awake, live life fully, don’t sell out, don’t compromise. Encourage people to do that, then there’s hope.</p> <p><strong>If one of these young people came to you seeking advice, what would it be?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Try to get into your own mind a little bit. Figure out what it is you want to do with your life, what you really want to do, who you really are. Don’t waste your life doing something that you’re going to end up being bored with, or feel was futile or a waste of time. It’s your life, live it as fully and as usefully as you possibly can. “Useful” being the most important thing there. Life must be lived usefully, not selfishly. And a usefully lived life is probably going to be, ultimately, more satisfying.</p> <p><strong>One last question: How would you like to be remembered?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: I would rather go on than be remembered.</p> <p><strong>Anything we didn’t cover that you think is important to cover?</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Let’s see, we didn’t talk about the three most important things that playwrights like to talk about: sex, money and food.</p> <p><strong>Feel free.</strong></p> <p>Edward Albee: Now we don’t have any time. What a pity!</p> <p><strong>Thank you very much.</strong></p> <p>You’re welcome. Nice talking to you.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Edward Albee Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>16 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="Edward Albee in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of his play A Delicate Balance, 1967. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of his play A Delicate Balance, 1967. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee in London for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of his play "A Delicate Balance," 1967. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="alb1-009" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-009-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5169660678643" title="Edward Albee in rehearsal for his play, The Man Who Had Three Arms, 1981. (Ray Fisher/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee in rehearsal for his play, The Man Who Had Three Arms, 1981. (Ray Fisher/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee in rehearsal for his play "The Man Who Had Three Arms," 1981. (Ray Fisher/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Edward Albee" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-251x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-007-501x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.86184210526316" title="Edward Albee, at home in Greenwich Village with his dog and his paintings, 1967. (Truman Moore/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee, at home in Greenwich Village with his dog and his paintings, 1967. (Truman Moore/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-006.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee, at home in Greenwich Village with his dog and his paintings, 1967. (Truman Moore/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Edward Albee" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-006-380x327.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-006-760x655.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2063492063492" title="Playwright Edward Albee receives a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, June 6, 2005. (© PETER FOLEY/EPA/Corbis)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Playwright Edward Albee receives a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, June 6, 2005. (© PETER FOLEY/EPA/Corbis)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-005.jpg" data-image-caption="Playwright Edward Albee receives a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, June 6, 2005. (© PETER FOLEY/EPA/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="2005 TONY AWARDS CEREMONY AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL IN NEW YORK CITY" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-005-315x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-005-630x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5230460921844" title="Edward Albee, three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (© Christopher Felver/CORBIS)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee, three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (© Christopher Felver/CORBIS)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-004.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee, three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. (© Christopher Felver/CORBIS) " data-image-copyright="Author and Playwright Edward Albee" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-004-250x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-004-499x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0133333333333" title="Edward Albee at work in his Greenwich Village apartment, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee at work in his Greenwich Village apartment, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee at work in his Greenwich Village apartment, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Playwright Edward Albee Writing at Rolltop Desk" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003-375x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-003-750x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.775" title="Edward Albee in 1962, the year of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee in 1962, the year of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee in 1962, the year of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Edward Albee" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002-380x294.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-002-760x589.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="Edward Albee" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Edward Albee">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-001a.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee" data-image-copyright="alb1-001a" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-001a-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/alb1-001a.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.025641025641" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680.jpg" data-image-caption="One of the most controversial playwrights in the American theater, 35-year-old Edward Albee seems like a pensive college boy doing his homework in the dining room. Camera study of the prize-winning dramatist was made in his Greenwich Village apartment, May 4, 1963. (Bettmann/Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp2-GettyImages-514682680" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680-371x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp2-GettyImages-514682680-741x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0465.jpg" data-image-caption="The Artistic Director of New York's Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, conducted a panel discussion between the Academy's student delegates and members during the 2005 International Achievement Summit: America's foremost playwright, Edward Albee; Broadway's most honored composer, Stephen Sondheim; "Angels in America" author Tony Kushner; the distinguished stage and screen actor James Earl Jones; and two-time Oscar winners Sally Field and Denzel Washington. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Academy2005_0465" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0465-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0465-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0466.jpg" data-image-caption="June 2005: The Artistic Director of New York's Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, conducted the discussion between the Academy's student delegates and a panel including: America's foremost playwright, Edward Albee; Broadway's most honored composer, Stephen Sondheim; "Angels in America" author Tony Kushner; the distinguished actor James Earl Jones; and two-time Oscar winners Sally Field and Denzel Washington. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wp-Academy2005_0466" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0466-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0466-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467.jpg" data-image-caption="The Artistic Director of New York's Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, conducted a panel discussion between the Academy's student delegates and members during the 2005 International Achievement Summit: America's foremost playwright, Edward Albee; Broadway's most honored composer, Stephen Sondheim; "Angels in America" author Tony Kushner; the distinguished stage and screen actor James Earl Jones; and two-time Oscar winners Sally Field and Denzel Washington. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-Academy2005_0467" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_0467-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211.jpg" data-image-caption="Toni Morrison and Edward Albee at a reception before the Golden Plate Awards ceremony during the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wp-Academy2005_1211" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1211-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1248.jpg" data-image-caption="Edward Albee 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="Edward Albee 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1248-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-Academy2005_1248-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3523131672598" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008.jpg" data-image-caption="Melinda Dillon and Arthur Hill in the original Broadway production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," 1962. (Henry Grossman/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Arthur Hill;Melinda Dillon" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008-281x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/alb1-008-562x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2687813021703" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1.jpg" data-image-caption="1962: Mrs. Reed Albee and her son Edward Albee, author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?." Edward Albee knew he was adopted but never attempted to locate his birth parents. (Photo by Bert Morgan/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Mrs Reed Albee and her son Edward Albee, author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"?" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1-299x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/08/wp-GettyImages-90607575-1-599x760.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20170606155748/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. 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