Hackford To Direct Movie Based On Early Life of Tennessee Williams

 Variety is reporting that Taylor Hackford, director of the upcoming Leap of Faith, is in the works to direct a new feature film "Tenn" based on the life of playwright Tennessee Williams.

The movie will focus on the writer's early years, during which his family dysfunction became the fuel for some of his greatest works.

Variety states, "Pic focuses on how Williams' tumultuous upbringing -- complete with a scornful father, depression, conflicts about sexuality and watching his beloved sister institutionalized and lobotomized -- fueled the conflict in such plays as "The Glass Menagerie" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Streetcar Named Desire."" 

The film is said to resemble something along the lines of "In Cold Blood" the recent hit film in which Philip Seymore Hoffman portrayed Truman Capote during his journey of writing the novel of the same title. Both films are developed by Infinity Media's Michael Ohoven.

Tennessee Williams is one of the best known playwrights in American history. His Broadway show The Glass Menagerie was a huge success in 1945. He followed it up with works such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night of the Iguana and Summer and Smoke. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his play A Streetcare Named Desire which was later made into an Academy Award winning film starring Marlon Brando. In 1952 he received a Tony for The Rose Tattoo.

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