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Lorraine (Vivian) Hansberry Biography (1930-1965)

Full name, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry; born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, IL; diedof cancer, January 12, 1965, in New York City; buried in Beth-El Cemetery, Croton-on-Hudson, NY; daughter of Carl Augustus (a realtor and banker) and Nannie (Perry) Hansberry; married Robert B. Nemiroff (a music publisher and songwriter), June 20, 1953 (divorced, 1964). Avocational interests: Pingpong, skiing, walking in the woods, reading biographies, conversation. Career: Writer and director. Freedomways(monthly magazine), journalist, 1950-51, then associate editor, 1952-53. Also worked as an aide to a theatrical producer, a department store clerk, in a fur store, and as a waitress,hostess, and cashier in a Greenwich Village restaurant run by Robert B. Nemiroff's family. Member: Dramatists Guild, Ira Aldrich Society, Institutefor Advanced Study in the Theater Arts. Awards, Honors: Named most promising playwright of the season, Variety magazine, 1959; New York Drama Critics Circle Award, best American play, 1959, Antoinette Perry Award nomination, best play, 1960, both for A Raisin in the Sun; Cannes International Film Festival special award and Screen Writers Guild nomination, 1961,both for A Raisin in the Sun..

Hansberry is the subject of a film, The Black Experience in the Creation of Dramatic Subject, Films for the Humanities.

Nationality

American

Gender

Female

Occupation

Writer, Director

Birth Details

May 19, 1930

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Death Details

January 12, 1965

New York, New York, United States

Famous Works

• CREDITS
• Stage Work
• Director
• Kicks and Co, Arie Crown Theatre, Chicago, IL, 1961
• RECORDINGS
• Albums
• Lorraine Hansberry Speaks Out: Art and the Black Revolution, Caedmon, 1972
• A Raisin in the Sun, Caedmon, 1972
• WRITINGS
• Stage Plays
• A Raisin in the Sun, U.S. cities, 1959
• The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, Longacre Theatre, New York City, 1964
• Les Blancs, published by Hart Stenographic Bureau, 1966
• Screenplays
• A Raisin in the Sun, Columbia, 1961
• Nonfiction
• The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality, Simon &Schuster (New York City), 1964
• Other Writings
• Contributor to books, including American Playwrights on Drama, edited by Horst Frenz, Hill & Wang, 1965; Three Negro Plays, introduction by C. W. E. Bigsby, Penguin, 1969; and Black Titan: W. E. B. Du Bois;an Anthology by the Editors of Freedomways, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 1970. Contributor to periodicals, including the Negro Digest, Theatre Arts, and Village Voice.

Recent Updates

December 18, 2003: Hansbury's A Raisin in the Sun is scheduledfor its first Broadway revival in 2004. The production will star Sean Combs.Source: Associated Press, http://customwire.ap.org, December 18, 2003.

Further Reference

Adaptations:

• Hansberry's writings were adapted for the stage production To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: A Portrait of Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words, produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City, 1969; and was edited and adapted for print by Robert B. Nemiroff and Samuel French, with an introduction by James Baldwin, and was published by Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1969, and by Samuel French, 1971; it was also dramatized as a production ofthe National Educational Television and Radio Center, 1997. A Raisin in the Sun was adapted as the musical Raisin and was first produced atthe Forty-sixth Street Theatre, New York City, 1973; it was also adapted asa television special and broadcast on American Playhouse, PBS, 1989.

OTHER SOURCES

Books:

• Carter, Steven R., Hansberry's Drama: Commitment amid Complexity,University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 1991.
• McKissack, Patricia C., and Frederick L. McKissack, Young, Black, andDetermined: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Holiday House (New York City), 1997.*