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Lillian Hellman: An Imperious Life
From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fresh look at Lillian Hellman’s restless life, her extraordinary plays, and her autobiographical myths
“A fast-flowing, deeply provocative portrait of a seductive, truculent, and audacious literary powerhouse.”— Booklist
Glamorous, talented, audacious—Lillian Hellman knew everyone, did everything, had been everywhere. By the age of twenty-nine she had written The Children’s Hour, the first of four hit Broadway plays, and soon she was considered a member of America’s first rank of dramatists, a position she maintained for more than twenty-five years. Apart from her literary accomplishments—eight original plays and three volumes of memoirs—Hellman lived a rich life filled with notable friendships, controversial political activity, travel, and love affairs, most importantly with Dashiell Hammett. But by the time she died, the truth about her life and works had been called into question. Scandals attached to her name, having to do with sex, with money, and with her own veracity. Dorothy Gallagher confronts the conundrum that was Lillian Hellman—a woman with a capacity to inspire outrage as often as admiration. Exploring Hellman’s leftist politics, her Jewish and Southern background, and her famous testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Gallagher also undertakes a new reading of Hellman’s carefully crafted memoirs and plays, in which she is both revealed and hidden. Gallagher sorts through the facts and the myths, arriving at a sharply drawn portrait of a woman who lived large to the end of her remarkable life and never backed down from a fight.
About Jewish
Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.
In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.
More praise for Jewish
"Excellent" –New York Times
"Exemplary" –Wall Street Journal
"Distinguished" –New Yorker
"Superb" –The Guardian
“A fast-flowing, deeply provocative portrait of a seductive, truculent, and audacious literary powerhouse.”— Booklist
Glamorous, talented, audacious—Lillian Hellman knew everyone, did everything, had been everywhere. By the age of twenty-nine she had written The Children’s Hour, the first of four hit Broadway plays, and soon she was considered a member of America’s first rank of dramatists, a position she maintained for more than twenty-five years. Apart from her literary accomplishments—eight original plays and three volumes of memoirs—Hellman lived a rich life filled with notable friendships, controversial political activity, travel, and love affairs, most importantly with Dashiell Hammett. But by the time she died, the truth about her life and works had been called into question. Scandals attached to her name, having to do with sex, with money, and with her own veracity. Dorothy Gallagher confronts the conundrum that was Lillian Hellman—a woman with a capacity to inspire outrage as often as admiration. Exploring Hellman’s leftist politics, her Jewish and Southern background, and her famous testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Gallagher also undertakes a new reading of Hellman’s carefully crafted memoirs and plays, in which she is both revealed and hidden. Gallagher sorts through the facts and the myths, arriving at a sharply drawn portrait of a woman who lived large to the end of her remarkable life and never backed down from a fight.
About Jewish
Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.
In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.
More praise for Jewish
"Excellent" –New York Times
"Exemplary" –Wall Street Journal
"Distinguished" –New Yorker
"Superb" –The Guardian
171 pages, Hardcover
First published November 26, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 7, 2014
Until now I'd admired Lillian Hellman as a female author who stood up for her principles during the Mc Carthy era. After I read Dorothy Gallagher's biog, I find that much was untrue. The biographer's tone is condemnatory of the lies Lillian perpetuated in her writing and public life. The tone is grudging and I wondered why a biographer would spend so much time researching a woman she did not admire. A fine line between some versions of truth , drama and fiction. Now I think I might read a few more books of the period to find if cross referencing gives a few more facts.
August 31, 2021
A critical biography of Lillian Hellman that emphasizes the amount of fiction that she included in her numerous volumes of memoirs. I found the early chapters about her ancestors and how they immigrated in the United States in the early 19th century to be the most interesting ones. There is extended discussion of the impact of the Cold War on American culture. Before reading the book, I was unfamiliar with Hellman's plays and I would have been interested to read more about her as playwright.
March 26, 2025
"When she arrived in Moscow in October 1966, more than twenty years had passed since Stalin's death, ten years had passed since he had been denounced by Khrushchev." (page 121).
The irony of it! In a book about the "inaccuracies" of Lillian Hellman we are informed that Stalin died sometime before 1946. Oh well, assuming that she was there in 1966 and we know that Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, that's two out of three. Hellman should have done so well. Did the editors not know that Stalin died in 1953? Was there an editor who actually read the book? I expect better.
My main criticism of the book is that I just can't see why the Jewish Lives series would include someone as not Jewish as Lillian Hellman. If the issue was "Who is a Jew" for deciding who can marry whom, then she qualifies. Other than that? Gornisht. It made sense for Sarah Bernhardt because as a Catholic with only one Jewish parent she was stigmatized as Jewish. Thus we learn about what it meant to be considered Jewish at the time. I would also include Dreyfus in this category. Though always a Jew he didn't make much of his Judaism, though others most definitely did. That's the lesson that I think belongs in the series. I don't expect seventy books on Jews like HaRav Kook but the figures should have something to tell us about the lives and times of Jewish people. The only information on Jews that we get is learning about other Jews like Bellow, Malamud, Miller, Mailer and many others in the literary scene of the times.
When evaluating the book I did not take into account the overwhelming evidence that she was an awful person although it made for a most unpleasant read. More than the lying, I can't excuse the fact that she couldn't figure out that Stalin was a monster even after the purges and then the Nazi-Soviet pact. I was under the impression that only the most stubborn of the Communists stayed with the party after it was clear that the American party was only a tool of the Russians.
For those considering reading the books of the Jewish Lives Series, I recommend the series wholeheartedly but perhaps move this volume to the end of the line.
The irony of it! In a book about the "inaccuracies" of Lillian Hellman we are informed that Stalin died sometime before 1946. Oh well, assuming that she was there in 1966 and we know that Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, that's two out of three. Hellman should have done so well. Did the editors not know that Stalin died in 1953? Was there an editor who actually read the book? I expect better.
My main criticism of the book is that I just can't see why the Jewish Lives series would include someone as not Jewish as Lillian Hellman. If the issue was "Who is a Jew" for deciding who can marry whom, then she qualifies. Other than that? Gornisht. It made sense for Sarah Bernhardt because as a Catholic with only one Jewish parent she was stigmatized as Jewish. Thus we learn about what it meant to be considered Jewish at the time. I would also include Dreyfus in this category. Though always a Jew he didn't make much of his Judaism, though others most definitely did. That's the lesson that I think belongs in the series. I don't expect seventy books on Jews like HaRav Kook but the figures should have something to tell us about the lives and times of Jewish people. The only information on Jews that we get is learning about other Jews like Bellow, Malamud, Miller, Mailer and many others in the literary scene of the times.
When evaluating the book I did not take into account the overwhelming evidence that she was an awful person although it made for a most unpleasant read. More than the lying, I can't excuse the fact that she couldn't figure out that Stalin was a monster even after the purges and then the Nazi-Soviet pact. I was under the impression that only the most stubborn of the Communists stayed with the party after it was clear that the American party was only a tool of the Russians.
For those considering reading the books of the Jewish Lives Series, I recommend the series wholeheartedly but perhaps move this volume to the end of the line.
June 3, 2022
Lillian Hellman was one of the most famous playwrights of the 20th century, as well as the author of screenplays, memoirs, and a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee. It is this letter that she is best remembered for, and her best piece of writing in which she stated that she would not name names nor would she "cut her conscience to fit this year's fashions." Her political beliefs were outspoken and was her personal life. She had an open relationship for three decades with the writer Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon). She won many awards including a Tony award, the New York Drama Critics Award for Best American Play, two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, a membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also received a US National Book Award for her memoir An Unfinished Woman. The 1977 film Oscar winning film Julia starring Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda was based on Hellman's book Pentimento. Despite her hard earned success of being a successful woman writer in the 1950s, she was often criticized for a lack of validity in her memoirs. The author Mary McCarthy and Hellman had an ongoing legal fight on this topic that was never settled during their lifetime.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews