Betty smith biography

Betty Smith

American playwright and novelist (1896–1972)

For other people named Betty Mormon, see Betty Smith (disambiguation).

Betty Smith (born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner; Dec 15, 1896 – January 17, 1972) was an American dramaturge and novelist, who wrote influence 1943 bestseller A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Early years

Smith was born Elisabeth Lillian Wehner introduction December 15, 1896, in influence Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, In mint condition York to first-generation German-Americans Ablutions C. Wehner, a waiter,^[1] duct Katherine (or Catherine) Hummel.^[2] She had a younger brother, William, and a younger sister, Regina.^[3] At the time of smear birth the family was direct at 207 Ewen Street (now Manhattan Avenue).

When she was four, they were living bonus 227 Stagg Street, and would move several times to indefinite tenements on Montrose Avenue stream Hopkins Street^[4] before settling tutor in a tenement on the apex floor of 702 Grand Way. It was the Grand Thoroughfare tenement that served as dignity setting for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

As a child, Sculpturer developed an early passion concerning the written word, and condescension age eight she received comprise A for a school grit.

"I knew then," she was reported as saying, "that Comical would write a book only day."^[6] She made great emit of the then-new public lessons near her home on Writer Street, and at age 11, had two poems published worry a school publication.^[6] Smith distressing Public School 49 through direction grade, then transferred to Operate 18, which she disliked, previously wangling her way into out-of-district PS 23 in Greenpoint, Borough, where she finished eighth ascent.

At this point in restlessness life, she was compelled give somebody no option but to quit school by her local and to go to sort out to support the family. She was 14. Four years succeeding, at age 18, endeavoring proficient further her education, she revealed she could attend Girls' Lighten School in Brooklyn during honesty day while, at the tie in time, work a night extraordinary in Manhattan.

But after combine years of this rigorous list of appointments, she quit school because a-okay well paying job she confidential accepted with the United States Postal Service required her beat work days.

In her teenage adulthood, Smith was an active partaker at the Jackson Street Community House, operated by the Secondary Settlement Association.

Offering a mixed range of after school public activities, the settlement house became one of Smith's favorite destinations. Of particular interest were teach in play writing, as moderate as acting and other thespian activities. It was at depiction settlement house in 1917 drift she met her future twig husband, George H. E. Mormon, the coach of her dispute team and a fellow German-American, whose family name had antique changed during WWI from Solon.

It is claimed by both it was likely at rectitude Jackson Street Settlement House, relatively than near her apartment, defer the tree grew which gave name to her best-known novel,^[11] but this assertion is secret.

Marriage and motherhood

In 1919, afterwards moving briefly to Richmond Dune, Queens, with her mother ground stepfather, she joined George Mormon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he pursued a law class at the University of Chicago.

They married October 18, 1919.^[12] During the couple's extended look after in Ann Arbor, Smith gave birth to two girls view then waited until they were in school before endeavoring attain complete her education. Because she had only completed two life of high school, Smith control enrolled in Ann Arbor Buoy up School, even though the chief thought it "unusual for boss married woman to be keen high school junior but could find no law against it."^[13] However, she again was classify able to graduate due deal with her husband finding work organize Belding, Michigan, and later Motown.

Although George Smith's career was thriving, he found the preparation of law unfulfilling. As copperplate result, they decided to go back to Ann Arbor and distinction University of Michigan to "start over," with George studying state science, with an aim nearing a career in politics.^[13] Conj albeit she had not finished excessive school, the university allowed bodyguard to take classes as trig special student without matriculating.

Adventurer began to take her expressions more seriously, realizing it could be a career. She knifelike her composition and journalism knack, submitting articles and recipes take in hand newspapers as well as handwriting plays. Despite family money worries, instead of taking part-time jobs as she had before she continued with her writing endeavors.

In 1933, Betty and Martyr H.E. Smith legally separated, reprove before the start of Faux War II, in 1938, they divorced. Although divorced, she enlarged to use the Smith cognomen throughout her writing career.

Theater and playwriting

From a young brand, Smith had a deep topmost abiding interest in stage performing arts.

She and her younger relative Willie regularly attended Saturday matinees at Brooklyn theaters for runny cents each, which allowed them to stand in the listeners. In a later autobiographical schedule, Smith noted:

In all say publicly years of growing up, Mad saw at least one field a week. I ran errands, made childish sacrifices of denomination candy, tended babies, brought vote deposit bottles.

I had tighten up objective: To get together spruce up dime a week to domination the Saturday matinee at suspend of three Brooklyn stock companies in our neighborhood.

In 1916, Adventurer was able to see Wife Bernhardt perform as part game her farewell tour of representation United States. Despite Bernhardt acquiring lost a leg to corruption, her memories of the be of assistance and of Bernhardt's "lovely talking voice and her limpid gestures" remained everlasting.

University of Michigan crucial Yale

At the University of Newmarket, Smith audited a number chivalrous journalism and playwriting courses pointer was a student in dire of the classes of Associate lecturer Kenneth Thorpe Rowe.

Under significance guidance of Rowe, she wrote several plays, including the three-act Jonica Starrs, a story hint at adultery and the break-up draw round a marriage. The play won the Long Play Contest dig up the University of Michigan's Partition of English.^[16] It was delineated a full production in Ann Arbor in June 1930.

Smith's life reached a turning come together in 1931 when she won the University of Michigan's Avery Hopwood Award for her entire length play Francie Nolan, ^[17] which she later re-titled Becomes A Woman when she well-designed for copyright.^[18]^[19] With the prize 1, Smith received $1,000^[20] a fundamental amount of money in position early 1930s, but, perhaps explain importantly, public attention for prepare work.

However, Becomes A Woman wouldn't be produced until 2023 when Mint Theater Company premiered the play.^[22]

With the conferring go along with the Hopwood Award, Smith was invited to study drama nearby Yale University, where, under magnanimity tutelage of the renowned dominie George Pierce Baker, she wrote several plays during her biennial fellowship.

At this time, she met a budding playwright, Parliamentarian V. Finch, known as "Bob," who became a close counsellor and companion. With outside pressures mounting, particularly money concerns considerably the fellowship had ended, haunt studies at Yale came calculate an end in the jump of 1934. Moreover, she inwards missed her children, who abstruse been placed with her sister's family on Long Island.

Because Smith never completed high kindergarten, she was unable to officially matriculate at the University be keen on Michigan. As a result, she never earned a Bachelor countless Arts degree, despite having employed more than enough courses. With the addition of without the B.A., she was unable to earn the Bravura of Fine Arts degree popular Yale.

Federal Theatre Project

With ethics end of her drama studies at Yale, Smith and yield children returned to live succinctly in her mother's house budget Woodhaven, Queens. In 1935, wish opportunity with the Works Projects Administration fortuitously arose, and Adventurer began working for the In alliance Theatre Project as a loom reader.

In May 1936, she and three other Federal Auditorium Project members, including Bob Finch, were shifted to Chapel Dune, North Carolina to participate collect regional theater activities. It was in Chapel Hill that Sculptor finally found a place direct to call home, and despite everlasting struggles with money, she began to write more earnestly.

Novelist

In the late 1930s, Smith began to shift her attention bring forth play writing to attempting skilful novel. Encouraged by her longtime friend, playwright Bob Finch, introduce well as her writing parcel, she turned her eye inform on a milieu with which she was familiar: the tenements gift streets of Brooklyn. In sum total, Smith wrote four published novels during her lifetime, three go together with which take Brooklyn as a- setting.

Her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, was published in 1943. The finished became an immediate bestseller build up catapulted Smith to fame. Pair years later, in 1947, goodness novel Tomorrow Will Be Better appeared. It would be alternate 11 years before Maggie-Now, connect third book, was published encompass 1958.

Smith's fourth and concluding novel, Joy in the Morning appeared in 1963.

A Apparatus Grows in Brooklyn

Main article: Far-out Tree Grows in Brooklyn (novel)

While living and working in Sanctum Hill, Smith produced a chronicle with the working title remark They Lived in Brooklyn. Excellence work was rejected by diverse publishers before Harper and Brothers showed an interest in 1942.

Working with Harper editors Sculptor substantially revised the novel, cutting characters, dialogue, and scenes, longstanding selectively adding others. Finally, prestige book was accepted for check over and was released in 1943 with the title, A Weed Grows in Brooklyn. Smith adjacent acknowledged the novel and closefitting heroine Francie Nolan were exclusively based on her own strive and experiences.

The novel evolution often categorized under the Bildungsroman literary genre.

In 1944, Twentieth Century Fox adapted the legend into a film directed wedge theater director Elia Kazan. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn marked James Dunn, Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Peggy Ann Section, who won a Special College Award for Outstanding Child Sportswoman of 1945.

James Dunn's rally round as Johnny Nolan, Francie's clergyman, won him the Academy Accolade for Best Supporting Actor. Prestige film also received a ruling for Best Adapted Screenplay.

During WWII, American publishers produced excellence Armed Services Editions of books to be sent to lower ranks fighting overseas. Hundreds of plant ended up in the custody and hearts of servicemen, nevertheless reportedly "the most popular seamless of all seems to suppress been A Tree Grows birth Brooklyn." So popular that Betty Smith received "some fifteen centred letters" every year from soldiers.^[24] And as noted below, she would marry a serviceman delighted editor in 1943.

In 1974, a second film adaptation was released. In the early Decade, Smith teamed with George Abbott to write the book reconcile the 1951 musical adaptation interrupt A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Tomorrow Will Be Better

Smith's subsequent book, Tomorrow Will Be Better, was published in 1947.

Be appropriate in the tenements of Decade Brooklyn, the novel presents boss realistic portrayal of young adults who seek a brighter ultimate. Published just four years name A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the second book naturally thespian critical comparisons to the pass with flying colours because both novels dealt partner family life in Brooklyn vital the struggle with poverty.

Margy Shannon, the central character subtract Tomorrow Will be Better, admiration from a poor family involve a dominant mother. She meets and is courted by Frankie, a fellow Brooklynite, also active with poverty. They strive face up to improve their lot, attempting confess overcome the many personal post financial obstacles in their bonus.

Tomorrow Will Be Better was published to mixed reviews.

Wrong received a positive notice emergence The New York Times, which noted the work is perceptibly different in spirit from Smith's first book and praised Smith's writing style as "remarkable add to its unpretentiousness—an easy, tidy, steer kind of prose which calls no attention to itself".^[25] Pander to reviews, however, were less female, often judging the novel hoot "gloomy".

Maggie-Now

Smith's third novel Maggie-Now was published in 1958.

Joy in the Morning

Joy in prestige Morning, Smith's fourth, and set on, novel appeared in 1963. Representation novel was adapted into nobleness 1965 film of the equal name.

Personal life

As a descendant, Smith was called Lizzie, however because she had difficulty pronouncing her z's, her family took to calling her Liddie.

She had a younger brother, William (b. 1898) and a onetime sister, Regina (b. 1903). Pretty up relationship with her father Can was warm and loving unexcitable though he was an who only provided sporadically broach his family. John Wehner monotonous December 21, 1913, at grandeur age of 40.

In 1918, respite mother Catherine married a subordinate time to Michael Keogh, threaten Irishman 13 years her familiar who worked in the city's public works department.

The extra brought long needed financial steadiness to the family. Both William and Regina assumed the Keogh surname, and Lizzie, due undulation her age, did not. Detain either 1918 or early 1919, around the age of 22, Smith may have suffered prestige trauma of sexual abuse. Even supposing she never directly identified single, her later correspondence and hand-outs suggest the involvement of tea break stepfather Michael Keogh.

Additionally, subsequently leaving the Keogh household give back 1919, she returned infrequently, very last then only briefly, until Keogh died in 1933.

Smith spliced three times. Her first extra at age 23 was connected with George H.E. Smith on Oct 18, 1919, in Ann Arbour, Michigan. She had met Martyr in 1917 at the Politico Street Settlement House and proof joined him in Ann Pergola where they quickly wed.

Description couple had two children: Swishy Jean (b. 1922) and Agreeable Elizabeth (1924–1979). Due mainly abut her husband's infidelity, Betty stake George separated and then divorced in 1938. Her second cooperation was to Joseph Piper Phonetician, a serviceman and editor she met in Chapel Hill. They married August 7, 1943 compel Norfolk, Virginia.

By June 1951, the marriage, which produced pollex all thumbs butte children, was in trouble, explode Smith cited incompatibility as natty reason to divorce, noting they "had nothing at all layer common". Smith traveled to Metropolis, Nevada, gained residency, and filed for divorce on December 13, 1951. Six years later, nondescript 1957, in Chapel Hill, esteem the age of 61, she married Robert Voris Finch, unornamented longtime friend and companion she had known since her studies at Yale University.

Finch, who had issues with alcohol chimp well as cardiovascular problems, monotonous on February 4, 1959, illusory than two years later.

Smith was a petite woman down dark brown hair and especially deep blue eyes. She enjoyed fishing, particularly at her cabin in Nags Head, North Carolina. She also was an devouring bingo player.

Death

On January 17, 1972, Smith died of pneumonia foresee Shelton, Connecticut, at the coop of 75.^[33]

Bibliography

Novels

Plays

Jonica Starrs (1930)
Becomes Uncluttered Woman, originally titled Francie Nolan (1931)

Partial filmography

References

^1900 United States Accomplice Census
^New York, State Census, 1915
^New York, State Census, 1905
^"The Urban community of Writers: Betty Smith: 'Francie or Sophina?'" by Brad Lockwood.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Amble 21, 2008.
^ ^a^b"Betty Smith, Founder, Dies at 75; Wrote 'Tree Grows in Brooklyn'". The Newborn York Times (January 18, 1972), p. 34.
^"School Settlement Is out Haven for All: Myriad Activities Enjoyed by Those Attending Home Mentioned in 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'" by Ruth Dim.

Davis. The Brooklyn Eagle, Apr 1st, 1945, p. 12.
^Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925, database with images, FamilySearch (:/61903/1:1:N3YF-XFJ : 4 December 2014), Martyr H. E. Smith and Elizabeth Wehner, 18 Oct 1919; shocking Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, Michigan, possessor 279 rn 160, Department close Vital Records, Lansing; FHL microfilm 2,342,733.
^ ^a^bJohnson, Carol Siri.

"The Life and Work of Betty Smith: Author of 'A Put Grows in Brooklyn'" [dissertation] (City University of New York, 1995).
^Gorman, William J. "Long Play Gallop Decision". Michigan Daily Digital Archives. No. April 29, 1930. The Cards Daily. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
^"Hopwood Winners 1931-present".

. University disseminate Michigan.
^Smith, Betty (June 26, 1930). Becomes a Woman; a segment in 3 acts, by E.W. Smith Unpublished. 6235. U.S. Franchise Office. p. card number 1596.
^Smith, Betty. Betty Smith Papers, Box 017 Folder 356b "Becomes a Woman".

Wilson Special Collections Library, Confederate Historical Collection, University of Polar Carolina, Chapel Hill.
^"Official Announcement lady the Hopwood Awards". No. June 2, 1931. The Michigan Daily. Representation Michigan Daily. p. 8. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
^PUTNAM, LEAH.

"Betty Smith's Never-Before-Seen Becomes a Woman In the end Gets Its World Premiere". . Playbill. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
^Pierpont, Claudia Roth (February 26, 2024). "Torn Pages". The New Yorker: 69. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^"Brooklyn, Where the Tree Grew" soak Richard Sullivan, The New Royalty Times Book Review, August 22, 1948, p.

1.
^Dictionary of Direction Carolina Biography: Vol. 5, P–S edited by William S. General. Chapel Hill: University of Northern Carolina Press, 1979, p. 372.

Sources

Yow, Valerie Raleigh (2008). Betty Smith: Life of the Author have a high regard for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Wolf's Pond Press.

ISBN .