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Happy Birthday, William Saroyan

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  • Happy Birthday, William Saroyan

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILLIAM SAROYAN

    Examiner.com
    http://www.examiner.com/x-20 517-Austin-Literature-Examiner~y2009m8d31-Happy-bi rthday-William-Saroyan
    Aug 31 2009

    One hundred and one years ago today, playwright and author William
    Saroyan was born. The son of Armenian immigrants, Saroyan was a
    California native who often set his stories in his home town of
    Fresno. His father died when he was three years old, and Saroyan
    himself is said to have decided to become a writer when his mother
    showed him some of his father's work.

    Saroyan's big break as a writer came with the publication of his story,
    The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze in 1934. Chronicling the
    struggle of a starving writer during the Depression, the story gained
    such popularity that Saroyan's previous works as well as his current
    writings began being published regularly. Six years later Saroyan was
    awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Time of Your Life, an honor
    he refused based on his belief that the arts should not be judged. The
    play was eventually adapted into a feature film starring James Cagney.

    In 1943, Saroyan was hired to write a screenplay for MGM Studios. This
    screenplay became the film The Human Comedy, but when Saroyan was
    fired from the project, he novelized the story as a counterpoint
    to the film. The novel, with strong references to Homer's Odyssey,
    follows 14-year-old Homer Macauley, who earns money as a telegraph
    boy in California. Set during the war, Homer sometimes finds himself
    delivering messages to families of fallen soldiers. Though he won
    an Oscar for the original story of the film, Saroyan fell out of
    favor after the war because of the idealism inherent in his work,
    then considered to be out of fashion.

    Fraught with financial troubles at various points in his career,
    and engaged in a tumultuous relationship with actress Carol Marcus,
    Saroyan's private life was not ideal. Married and divorced twice,
    Saroyan and Marcus had two children, daughter Lucy and son Aram, who
    is a poet and author in his own right today. Marcus went on to marry
    actor Walter Matthau. Saroyan continued to write late into his life,
    dying of prostate cancer in 1981.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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