Lillian Hellman was born into a New Orleans Jewish family circa 1905. Her childhood years were spent dividing her time between her mother’s upper middle class relatives in New York and her father’s adoring sisters in their boarding house in New Orleans. Her nurse, Sophronia, was the most cherished female figure and role model of her youth. The juxtapositions between North and South, black and white, rich and poor, as well as the complex relationships and colorful characters of her childhood, appear over and over in the plays of her adulthood.

Hellman was not a serious student, but she was a serious writer, working as a reader and editor in the 1920s. Her first husband was Arthur Kober, and the two lived in Europe for a few years until they left because of the anti-Semitism they felt brewing in Germany. In 1930, Hellman took up with Dashiell Hammett while working as a script reader at MGM. The two began a long-term love affair that lasted to his death. Hammett was also a writer, of detective stories that have become film noir classics like “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Thin Man.” (The character Nora Charles in “The Thin Man” is based on Hellman).

Hellman was a committed liberal who abhorred economic inequity and injustice, and her plays reflect her moral and political values. In the 1950s, both she and Hammett were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where Hellman made her now-famous remark about being unwilling to “cut [her] conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” The speech, and her refusal to cooperate with the Committee got her blacklisted in Hollywood for a time.

THE LITTLE FOXES was Hellman’s third play, after her first immense success with THE CHILDREN'S HOUR in 1934 and a disheartening failure with DAYS TO COME. THE LITTLE FOXES put her back on top, pleasing both audiences and critics. Tallulah Bankhead played the first Regina to much critical acclaim and the play was selected by Burns Mantle as one of the best plays of the year in 1939. Hellman also wrote the screenplay for the film version of the story that came out two years later, this time with Bette Davis as Regina.

THE LITTLE FOXES is praised as classic American theatre for the rhythmic quality of the dialogue, the crispness of the language, the explosive storytelling, and the rich character portraits. Hellman's sympathetic portrayal of black characters was ahead of its time in mid-century America, and she is often listed among the most significant American playwrights of the first half of the twentieth century, alongside Clifford Odets and Eugene O’Neill. However, many critics dismiss Hellman’s work for her reliance on the well-made plot formula, and THE LITTLE FOXES in particular for a melodramatic story and for characters so unpleasant that Hellman is accused of misanthropy.

Hellman continued to work through the 1960s, writing TOYS IN THE ATTIC, THE AUTUMN GARDEN, and the LITTLE FOXES prequel, ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST. She died in 1984.

[October 2006]

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