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 …
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Citation: Irelan, Scott R.. "Robert Sherwood". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4057, accessed 24 November 2024.]
