James Maxwell Anderson, 1888 - 1959
Born: 15 December 1888, Atlantic, Pennsylvania
Died: 28 February 1959, Stamford, Connecticut
Anderson was born on his maternal grandmother's farm, the family moved to Andover, Ohio where his father was a railroad fireman while studying for the Baptist ministry. They moved to Jamestown, North Dakota in time for his senior year at Jamestown High School (1908), he earned his B.A. in English Literature from the University of North Dakota in 1911. He was a high school principal and English teacher at the tiny hamlet of Minnewaukan for two years but was fired for pacifist statements. He moved west to Stanford University, earning an M.A. in 1914, then taught high school in San Francisco for three years. He was named chairman of the English department at Whittier College in 1917, his support of a student seeking conscientious objector status led to his dismissal within a year. He worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bulletin, then moved to New York City where he was an editorial writer for The New Republic, the New York Globe, and the New York World. He wrote his first play in 1923, his first successful play in 1924, and then devoted himself full time to writing plays, about forty of them. Saturday's Children was a 1927 hit on the stage, was filmed three times, and produced for television three times. He won the 1933 drama Pulitzer for Both Your Houses. His Anne of the Thousand Days was a hit on stage in 1948 and won an Oscar in 1969 when it was filmed, ten years after his death following a stroke.
Biography from Wikipedia and People of Pennsylvania
Maxwell Anderson quotes:
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- A dramatist is usually thought of as a slightly benighted child of nature who somehow or other did it all on a Ouija board. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - From the point of view of the playwright, then, the essence of a tragedy, or even of a serious play, is the spiritual awakening, or regeneration, of his hero. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - He was a god, such as men might be, if men were gods. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - I wrote [White Desert (1923)] in verse because I was weary of plays in prose that never lifted from the ground. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you.... It may break your heart, but it will fill your heart before it breaks it. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - The gods of men are sillier than their kings and queens, and emptier and more powerless. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - This liberty will look easy by and by when nobody dies to get it. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - This modern craze for biographical information leaves me cold for many reasons. For one thing, it's always inaccurate; for another, it's so bound up with publicity and other varieties of idiocy that it gags a person of any sensibility. For another, to be heralded is to become a candidate for the newest list of 'the busted geniuses of yester-year' of whom I hope never to be one. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - Truth's like a fire, and will burn through and be seen. permalink
Maxwell Anderson - What price Glory? permalink
Maxwell Anderson - When a government takes over a people's economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs. permalink
Maxwell Anderson
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