Biography

Dylan Thomas

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Dylan Thomas was born at the start of the First World War in the "ugly, lovely town" of Swansea, an industrial, coastal town on the South Wales Coast. He published his first volume of poetry, "Eighteen poems" in 1934 and went on to write many more volumes of poetry as well as many short stories, filmscripts, broadcast stories and talks. His work is mainly known for the darkly brooding Welsh Puritanism contrasting with the strong emotions and sensuality. Although regarded as a "Classic Welsh writer," he never spoke Welsh. He is best known for the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and the wonderful "Under Milk Wood." The latter was broadcast by the BBC with the subtitle "A play for voices" and, although people have since attempted films and plays, none are as successful as the simple radio version.
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>

He engaged in the bout of drinking that lead to his death at the White Horse Tavern in West Village section of New York City.
His children: Llewelyn Edouard Thomas, born January 30 1939; Aeronwy Bryn Thomas, born March 1942; and Colm Garan Hart Thomas, born July 1949.
His love of language was nurtured by his mother who read to him on those frequent occasions when he was sick in bed with asthma, bronchitis, and colds. The adult Thomas suffered more from alcoholism than asthma. He died at age 39.
In Dangerous Minds (1995), Michelle Pfeiffer's character assigns her students a "Dylan/Dylan" exam: they have to try and find a Dylan Thomas poem and Bob Dylan song that have a similar theme.
He wrote a number of screenplays during the 1940s, being usually paid £250 per script. The screenplays for "The Doctor and the Devils" and "Rebecca's Daughters" were both published long before they were turned into films; these scripts, both somewhat re-written, became films well over thirty years after their author's death.

Last words: "I've just had 15 double whiskies. I think that might be a record."
An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
(He wrote while visiting America:) There seems, at first, to be no reality at all in the life here: It is all an enormous façade of speed and efficiency and power behind which millions of little individuals are wrestling, in vain, with their own anxieties.
Wales, land of my Fathers. My Fathers can keep it.

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