Tennessee Williams was a gifted playwright who gave us such memorable characters as Stanley and Stella Kowalski. From the critical acclaim he attained with The Glass Menagerie to the two Pulitzer Prizes he earned for A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Williams's innovative technique, his use of Southern idioms, and his bold themes left a lasting impression on the American theater. He was born March 26, 1911, as Thomas Lanier Williams and wrote under the nickname of Tennessee. Williams won the 1945 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award with his semiautobiographical The Glass Menagerie, his first of a series of plays dealing with sexual frustration. His first Pulitzer Prize was awarded for 1947's A Streetcar Named Desire, which is considered his best work. The second Pulitzer Prize was in 1955 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.