Elements of Literature

Playwright Robert Anderson was born in New York City on April 28, 1917. He received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from Harvard University. During World War II, he joined the Navy and served in the Pacific. After the war, he adapted plays, movies and novels for radio and television and taught playwriting for the American Theater Wing.

He was among the theater's most visible, serious playwrights of the 1950s and 1960s and his plays walked the line between realism and sentimentality. He had six plays on Broadway between 1953 and 1971: Tea and Sympathy; All Summer Long; Silent Night, Lonely Night; I Never Sang for My Father; Solitaire and Double Solitaire; and You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running. Both Tea and Sympathy and I Never Sang for My Father were later made into films.

He also wrote screenplays including The Nun's Story (1959) and The Sand Pebbles (1966). His novel, After, was based on his experiences taking care of his first wife during her battle with cancer. He died due to complications of Alzheimer's disease on February 9, 2009 at the age of 91.

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