Emlyn Williams

Early life

Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flintshire. He was the eldest of the three surviving sons of Mary (née Williams), a former maidservant, and Richard Williams, a greengrocer. He spoke only Welsh until the age of eight. Later, he said he would probably have begun working in the mines at the age of 12 if he had not caught the attention of Sarah Grace Cooke, the model for Miss Moffat in The Corn Is Green. She was a teacher of French at the grammar school in Holywell, Flintshire, where Williams had gone on a scholarship. Over the course of seven years from 1915 onwards she encouraged him in his studies, and she also helped to pay for him to stay with a French friend of hers in Haute-Savoie in France, where he spent three months perfecting his French. When he was 17 she helped him to win a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied French and Italian.

In 1926, during his studies at university, Williams had a nervous breakdown, which was blamed largely on a failed friendship with another undergraduate. As a means of recovery Miss Cooke encouraged him to write. However, Williams intended to enter the theatrical world too and joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS).

Professional career

Aged 22, Williams performed with OUDS in his first full-length play, Full Moon, at the original Oxford Playhouse in 1927. Later that year he joined a London-based repertory company and began his stage career. By age 25 (1930), he had expanded his writing with works such as A Murder Has Been Arranged and The Late Christopher Bean. The same year he appeared in Edgar Wallace's hit thriller On the Spot in the West End.

Over the next few years Williams took on roles on stage and in films, including the first film version of Edgar Wallace's mystery, The Frightened Lady. At the age of 30 he became an overnight star with his thriller Night Must Fall (1935), in which he also played the lead role of a psychopathic murderer. The play was noted for its exploration of the killer's complex psychological state, a step forward for its genre.

His other highly successful play was very different: The Corn Is Green, written in 1938 when he was 33), was partly based on his own childhood in Wales. He starred as a Welsh schoolboy in the play's London premiere. The play came to Broadway in 1940 with Ethel Barrymore as the schoolteacher Miss Moffat. A 1950 Broadway revival starred Eva La Gallienne. The play was turned into a very successful film starring Bette Davis, and again into a made-for-television film starring Katharine Hepburn, under the direction of Williams's close friend George Cukor. An attempt to turn the play into a musical in the 1970s, with Davis again in the role of the schoolteacher with lyrics by Williams, failed. So did a Broadway revival in 1983 starring Cicely Tyson and Peter Gallagher. But a 1985 London revival at the Old Vic with Deborah Kerr was successful, as was a 2007 production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. That production starred Kate Burton. Williams was a close friend of Kate's parents, Richard Burton and Burton's first wife, Sybil. In the Williamstown production, the schoolboy – the role created by and modelled on Williams himself – was played by Kate Burton's son, Morgan Ritchie. The Corn is Green was revived at the National Theatre in London in 2022 with Nicola Walker playing Miss Moffat. Emlyn Williams included this story in his early autobiography George covering the years 1905-1927 and published in 1961. A sequel, Emlyn, covering the years 1927–1935, was published in 1973.

Emlyn Williams's autobiographical light comedy, The Druid's Rest, was first performed at the St Martin's Theatre, London, in 1944. It saw the stage debut of Richard Burton, whom Williams had spotted at an audition in Cardiff. The play has been revived at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in both 1976 and 2005, and received its first London revival in sixty years at the Finborough Theatre in London in 2009.

Personal life

Williams was married in 1935 to actress Mary Margery Carus-Wilson (née Shann), who died in 1970. They had two sons, Alan, a writer, and Brook, an actor. Brook became a close friend of Richard Burton, working as his personal assistant and appearing in many of his films. Williams was godfather to Kate Burton.

Both during his marriage and following his wife's death, Williams was actively bisexual throughout his adult life. He maintained a relationship from 1981 to 1986 with American theatre journalist Albert N. Williams, whom he met while he was appearing at the Northlight Theatre in the Chicago area with his one-man Charles Dickens show. Albert Williams served as Emlyn Williams's personal assistant during a 1982 tour of England, Wales and Ireland with the Charles Dickens and Dylan Thomas solo shows.

Death

Emlyn Williams died on 25 September 1987 at his flat in Dovehouse Street, Chelsea, London, from complications from bowel cancer. He was 81 years old. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London.

Honours

Emlyn Williams was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Wales in 1949.

Emlyn Williams was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1962.