Hellman was a critically and popularly acclaimed playwright. Her work was occasionally political and often controversial, and the events of her personal life garnered as much publicity as her writing. She is best known for her plays The Children's Hour (1934) and The Little Foxes (1939), and her memoir of the McCarthy era, Scoundrel Time (1976).

Biographical Information

An only child, Hellman was born in New Orleans on June 20 in either 1905 or 1906, to Max Hellman and Julia Newhouse Hellman. Although both parents were descended from German Jewish families who came to the United States in the 1840s, Hellman's maternal relatives were far more successful in America than her father's family. Her father started a shoe company with the money he acquired through marriage, but the business failed and the family moved to New York City, where the Newhouses had relocated. Starting at the age of six, Hellman divided her time between...