Clifford Odets dropped out of high school to pursue acting. In the 1930s he became a charter member of the Group Theatre, the famous "Method" acting troupe founded by Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford. Beginning with "Waiting for Lefty" (1935), Odets quickly became the most famous young playwright in America. In the next four years...
His play "Golden Boy" (its film adaptation Golden Boy (1939) was directed by Rouben Mamoulian) was inspired by the story of Paul Muni when he once told Odets about how he gave up boxing because it endangered his secondary career as a violinist.
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Clifford Odets' original script for Wild in the Country (1961) had Elvis Presley's character committing suicide at the end of the film. This was screened for a preview audience, who were horrified, and the ending was changed. According to Odets friend, Oscar Levant, in "Memoirs of an Amnesiac", "... only Odets would write a story for Elvis in which he committed suicide. Actually, it was humiliating that Odets had to write that kind of picture at all, but he needed the money. Everything he was against, in the beginning of his career, he wound up doing himself".
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Odets' friend, Oscar Levant, claimed that the writer once said, "The three greatest living playwrights are O'Neill, O'Casey, and Odets". When Levant's wife later brought it upped to the writer, he was shocked and remarked, "Did I say that?".
His play, Awake and Sing (1972), was nominated for the 1974 Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Play Production at the Candelight Forum Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
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His only Tony recognition came posthumously in 1965, sharing a book credit with William Gibson as part of the Best Musical nomination for Golden Boy (1962), based on his play.
$500,000
