Who

One of America's foremost playwrights, Albee has penned dozens of plays, including the seminal Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Backstory

Born in Washington D.C., Albee (it's pronounced AWL-bee) was adopted by an affluent family in Larchmont when he was 18 months old. As a kid, he had a number of unhappy educational experiences—after getting expelled from one school, he was shipped off to a military academy—and never got along with his rigidly conservative parents. After dropping out of college (Trinity) and having one final blowup with his adoptive mother, Albee left home for good and moved to Greenwich Village in 1948 at age 20, falling in with a bohemian crowd. He spent a decade working menial jobs (including a three-year turn as telegram deliverer for Western Union) before his lover, William Flanagan, sent his play The Zoo Story to friends in Europe, where the first workshop of the play was produced in 1959. But it was his 1962 play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that first earned Albee huge critical and commercial success. Unfortunately, he experienced a string of professional flops in between Virginia and his next hit, 1967's Pulitzer-winning A Delicate Balance, and soon descended into a grim period of career-arresting alcoholism. He eventually cleaned up his act and has since penned notable pieces like 1975's Seascape (for which he won another Pulitzer), 1994's Three Tall Women (for which he won yet another Pulitzer), as well as stage adaptations for Breakfast at Tiffany's and Lolita.

Of note

While many thought he'd thrown in the towel on producing original work, he earned a hit once again with 2002's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, about a well-to-do architect smitten with a goat, which won a Tony award for Best Play. That said, he'll always be best known for the endlessly quotable Virginia Woolf. Mike Nichols' film adaptation was showered with Oscars in 1966, and it's been revived once on Broadway since its 1962 premiere, in a 2004 production with Kathleen Turner. With close to 50 plays in oeuvre, Albee now boasts a trophy case that includes three Pulitzers as well as a Tony award for Lifetime Achievement. And he's still writing plays that revel in domestic discord and sexual taboo. Most recently he penned Me, Myself & I, about the mentally unstable mother of identical twins.

Vice

After the critical success of Virginia Woolf, Albee plunged in to a period of alcoholism. "By nature, I am a gentle, responsible, useful person, with a few special insights and gifts. With liquor, I am insane," he told biographer Mel Gussow.

Personal

After his booze-fueled relationship with Flanagan ended, Albee was involved for several years with playwright Terrence McNally, and eventually settled down with Canadian sculptor Jonathan Thomas, to whom Albee credits his recovery from alcoholism. Thomas died of bladder cancer in 2005. Albee now lives in a Tribeca loft in a former cheese warehouse, which he purchased in 1978.

Pet cause

In 1967, Albee founded the Edward E. Albee Foundation to provide a space for artists to work. "The Barn," as it's known, is located in Montauk.

True story

Albee says he got the inspiration for the title Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from graffiti he spotted in a gay bar on West 10th Street.