(born 1918), U.S. playwright and educator. Together with playwright Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee wrote and produced a wide variety of plays that were commercially successful and critically acclaimed. Born on Oct. 15, 1918, in Elyria, Ohio, Lee studied at Northwestern, Ohio Wesleyan, and Western Reserve universities in the 1930s and at Drake University in 1943–44. He served in the United States Air Force and was a cofounder of the Armed Forces Radio Service. Lee won a Peabody award in 1948 for the United National radio series. From 1946 to 1954, Lee produced the radio and television program Favorite Story. He taught at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts and at the University of California, Los Angeles, and lectured at other colleges and universities. Much of Lee's best-known work was written in collaboration with Lawrence. Their collaboration began in 1942 and included the play ‘Auntie Mame' (1956), adapted from the novel by Patrick Dennis. It became the musical ‘Mame' (1966) and had a long run on Broadway. Their play ‘Inherit the Wind' (1955) received the New York Drama Critics Poll award and the British Drama Critics award for best foreign play, among other honors. ‘Inherit the Wind' was based on the Scopes trial in Tennessee in 1925, in which a biology teacher was taken to court for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution to his students. Both ‘Auntie Mame' (1958) and ‘Inherit the Wind' (1960) were made into motion pictures and translated into dozens of languages. Another highly successful collaboration with Jerome Lawrence was ‘The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail' (1970). Other works written by Lawrence and Lee included ‘Sparks Fly Upward', which was produced on Broadway as ‘Diamond Orchid' (1965), and several screenplays, including ‘The New Yorkers' (1963) and ‘First Monday in October' (1982). Lee also wrote for the musicals ‘Look Ma, I'm Dancing' (1948) and ‘Shangri-La' (1956), which was based on James Hilton's novel ‘Lost Horizon'. Lee won the Tony award in 1955 and in 1966. He was awarded a Doctor of Literature degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1962, an honorary master's degree in theater from the Pasadena College of Theatre Arts in 1963, and the Moss Hart Memorial award in 1967. The Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts in New York City has a Lawrence and Lee Collection. |