Robert Sherwood

Scott R. Irelan (Augustana University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 4 Apr 1896
Died 14 Nov 1955
Activity 1924-1955

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Film/TV Script-writer/ Screenwriter
Playwright / Dramatist

Other

Biographer
Film Theorist/ Critic
Novelist
Revolutionary, Activist
Soldier
Translator

Resources

Sherwood's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Acknowledged as one of the most socially-committed playwrights in US theatre between the wars, Robert Emmet Sherwood’s varied interests during his lifetime steered him to explore diverse areas of endeavor, being in turn activist, motion picture critic, screenwriter, editor, adaptor, and presidential advisor. It was his activist tendencies, however, expressed particularly in his creative writing, that earned Sherwood the most notice, including three Pulitzer Prizes for his plays

Idiot’s Delight

(1936),

Abe Lincoln in Illinois

(1938) and

There Shall Be No Night

(1941), and an Academy Award for

The Best Years of Our Lives

(1946). In 1941 he was awarded a Gold Medal by the National Institute of Arts and Letters for being a distinguished voice in theatre arts. His fourth Pulitzer Prize…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2470 words

Citation: Irelan, Scott R.. "Robert Sherwood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4057, accessed 25 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here