Hellman, Lillian

Lillian Florence "Lilly" Hellman was a playwright, biographer and activist born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a German-Jewish family. Her mother’s family was wealthy, while her father came from a less affluent background. Lillian was an only child, and when she was five years old, the family moved to New York where her father worked as a travelling salesman. As Lillian was growing up, her family spent several months every year in the American South with her New Orleans relatives. Despite the fact that this was a time of segregation and white aggression against Afro-Americans, the city was known to be cosmopolitan and liberal. The large mixed population encouraged a rich cultural and social mix that not only formed the basis for Hellman’s ideas about justice and her life-long struggle for racial equality, but also informed her writing. The time she spent with her aunts in their crumbling pension and her visits to her mother’s wealthy family has a strong presence in her plays.