- Born
- Died
- Oscar winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient William Saroyan, who gained world fame with his classic book "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934), was born in California to Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan.
With his unmistakably American literary works, deeply rooted in his Armenian heritage, William Saroyan soon established himself as one of the preeminent short story writers, playwrights and novelists in the United States.
In 1939 and 1940 William Saroyan's "My Heart's in the Highlands" and "The Time of Your Life" were staged for theater and "Love's Old Sweet Song" opened on Broadway, winning the New York Critics Circle Award.
In 1943 his MGM screenplay "The Human Comedy" was novelized and published and received great reviews, and he won the Academy Award for Best Writing Original Story for "The Human Comedy".
He wrote the lyrics of Ross Bagdasarian's famous # 1 hit song "Come On-a My House", performed by Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Rosemary Clooney, which was featured in Madonna's "Swept Away" (2002) and Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952).
William Saroyan is one of the most important American writers of the 20th century -- along with such masters as John Updike, John Steinbeck, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, who admired him. Saroyan is perhaps the only major and influential writer to receive both the Pulitzer Prize and the Academy Award, and his work continues to appear on the theater stage and the silver screen worldwide.
- IMDb mini biography by: PARAJANOV.com
- SpousesCarol Grace(March 25, 1951 - March 6, 1952) (divorced)Carol Grace(February 20, 1943 - November 16, 1949) (divorced, 2 children)
- Children
- RelativesRoss Bagdasarian(Cousin)Hank Saroyan(Sibling)Hank Saroyan(Niece or Nephew)
- Divorced Carol Grace when he learned she was illegitimate and Jewish, but soon tried to get her to take him back. She divorced him within months of their second marriage.
- The Academy Award statuette that he won for "The Human Comedy" (1943) briefly adorrned a pawn shop window in San Francisco. The Oscar has been in possession of Saroyan's sister, and after she died in 1990, someone hocked it at the Mission Jewelry & Loan Co. for $250. Pawn broker Darryl Kaplan donated it to the William Saroyan Society in Fresno, California, despite having numerous offers to buy it, including one for $20,000 from a literary figure. The Oscar eventually was transferred to the Fresno Metropolitan Museum. Fresno was Saroyan's hometown and the site where "The Human Comedy" takes place.
- Won 1940 Pulitzer Prize for his play "The Time Of Your Life"; he declined the award.
- His play, "My Heart's in the Highlands", was written in twenty-four hours.
- The Best Writing, Original Story Academy Award he won for "The Human Comedy" (1943) was made out of plaster. Though he didn't attend the ceremony held at Graumann's Chinese Theatre on March 2, 1944, saying he "didn't want to bother carrying it around," he did eventually get the Oscar. The plaster award was exchanged for a metal one in 1946 after World War Two restrictions on metals were lifted. His sister Cosette, knowing he didn't want it, asked for it, and he gave it to her. Although thought missing after his death in 1981, it was in fact in her possession until she died in 1990.
- So that's a Broadway show. For God's sake, I could write a better one than that in twenty-four hours! [to Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, after being taken to his first Broadway play, "Ceiling Zero"]
- Genius is play, and man's capacity for achieving genius is infinite, and many may achieve genius only through play.
- There is little pride in writers. They know they are human and shall some day die and be forgotten. Knowing all this a writer is gentle and kindly where another man is severe and unkind.
- I was a little afraid of him; not the boy himself, but of what he seemed to be: the victim of the world.
- Indians are born with an instinct for riding, rowing, hunting, fishing, and swimming. Americans are born with an instinct for fooling around with machines.
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