Zoe Akins, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright

The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Zoë Akins was born on the day before Halloween in 1886 in Humansville, Missouri. After being home-schooled, she attended the Monticello Seminary in Godfrey, Illinois and Hosmer Hall in St. Louis for her education. Akins lived in St. Louis for many years, writing poetry and contributing criticism to the magazine Reedy's Mirror. As a writer, she developed into a successful contributor to the leading magazines of the day.

Zoë Akins wrote 40 plays, starting with the sophisticated comedy Papa in 1914. The Magical City, which was part of the repertory of the Washington Square Players' 1915-16 season, was her first Broadway production, opening on October 4, 1915. There were to be another 17 original plays of hers produced on Broadway over the next 30 years.

Her first big hit was Declassée, which starred Ethel Barrymore and ran for 257 performances in the 1919-20 season. She did not have another big hit until The Greeks Had a Word for It, which ran for 253 performances in the 1930-21 season. Her most famous play, The Old Maid -- an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel -- ran for 305 performances from January through September 1935. The play brought Zoë Akins the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Zoë Akins was the third woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, after Zona Gale in 1921 and Susan Glaspell in 1931. (Until Beth Henley won the Pulitzer for Drama in 1981, the first since Ketti Frings in 1958, only five women had won the award. Mary Coyle Chase won in 1945 for Harvey.) The 1935 Pulitzer was contoversial for two reasons: Many critics felt that The Old Maid was little more than a tearjerker, and that it was Lillian Hellman who should have won the award, for her play The Children's Hour.

Many believed that The Children's Hour failed to win the Pulitzer because of its overtones of lesbianism, and that the award to The Old Maid was, in essence, an act of censorship. Lillian Hellman never did win a Pulitzer.