James Maxwell Anderson was born on the 15th of December 1888, but his life was defined not by what he gained, but by what he repeatedly lost. He was a man who could not hold a job for more than a year, fired repeatedly for his unwavering commitment to his own conscience and his refusal to compromise his political views. This pattern of dismissal began in the early 1910s when he was a high school principal in Minnewaukan, North Dakota, and was dismissed in 1913 for making pacifist statements to his students. He was fired again from Whittier College in 1917 for supporting a jailed student who sought conscientious objector status, and later from the San Francisco Evening Bulletin for writing an editorial claiming Germany could not pay its war debt. Despite these professional catastrophes, Anderson found a way to survive and eventually thrive, transforming his failures into the fuel for a career that would produce some of the most enduring works of American theater. His story is one of resilience, where the very things that made him an outcast in the eyes of employers became the source of his artistic power.
The Boy Who Read Through Illness
Before he was a playwright, Maxwell Anderson was a sickly child who found refuge in books. Born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, to a Baptist minister and a woman of Scotch-Irish descent, Anderson spent much of his childhood bedridden, missing vast amounts of school. It was during these long periods of illness that he developed a voracious appetite for reading, a habit that would shape his entire worldview. His parents and Aunt Emma were storytellers, and their tales contributed to his deep love of literature. At age 11, he met Hallie Loomis, the first love of his life, during a visit to his grandmother's farm. This relationship would later inspire his autobiographical tale Morning, Winter and Night, a work that dealt with themes of rape, incest, and sadomasochism on the farm. He published this work under the pseudonym John Nairne Michealson to avoid offending his family, a decision that reflected his early understanding of the power of words and the need to protect those he loved. His family moved frequently, following his father's ministerial posts, and Anderson attended Jamestown High School, graduating in 1908. These early experiences of displacement and illness forged a character who was both introspective and deeply connected to the human condition.
The Journalist Who Refused To Compromise
Anderson's early career as a journalist was marked by a series of firings that seemed to follow him like a curse. After earning a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of North Dakota in 1911, he worked as a high school principal and teacher, but was fired in 1913 for making pacifist statements. He then attended Stanford University, earning a Master's degree in 1914, and taught in San Francisco before becoming chairman of the English department at Whittier College in 1917, only to be fired again for supporting a conscientious objector. He moved to Palo Alto to write for the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, but was fired for writing an editorial stating that it would be impossible for Germany to pay its war debt. He then wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle but was fired after contracting the Spanish flu and missing work. Alvin S. Johnson hired him to write for The New Republic in 1918, but he was fired after an argument with Editor-in-Chief Herbert David Croly. Despite these setbacks, Anderson found work at The New York Globe and the New York World. In 1921, he founded The Measure: A Journal of Poetry, a magazine devoted to verse. These experiences taught him the value of integrity and the cost of speaking truth to power, lessons that would later inform his dramatic works.
Anderson's transition from journalist to dramatist was marked by a unique commitment to the use of blank verse, a style rarely employed by modern playwrights. His first Broadway hit, What Price Glory, was a World War I comedy-drama written with Laurence Stallings in 1924. The play made use of profanity, which caused censors to protest, but the chief censor, Rear Admiral Charles Peshall Plunkett, was discredited because he was found to have written far more obscene letters to General Chamberlaine. Anderson's plays were in widely varying styles, and he was one of the few modern playwrights to make extensive use of blank verse. His political drama Both Your Houses won the Pulitzer Prize in 1933, and he twice received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, for Winterset and High Tor. He enjoyed great commercial success with a series of plays set during the reign of the Tudor family, who ruled England, Wales and Ireland from 1485 until 1603. One play in particular, Anne of the Thousand Days, the story of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, was a hit on the stage in 1948, but did not reach movie screens for 21 years. It opened on Broadway starring Rex Harrison and Joyce Redman, and became a 1969 movie with Richard Burton and Geneviève Bujold. His ability to blend historical drama with poetic language set him apart from his contemporaries.
The Man Who Lost His Wife Twice
Anderson's personal life was as tumultuous as his professional one. He married Margaret Haskett, a classmate, on the 1st of August 1911, in Bottineau, North Dakota. They had three sons, Quentin, Alan, and Terence. In 1929, Anderson wrote Gypsy, what would prove to be a prophetic play about a vain, neurotic liar who cheats on her husband then kills herself by inhaling gas after he catches her. It is around this same time that Anderson began a relationship with a married actress, Gertrude Higger, married name Mab Maynard, stage name Mab Anthony. The affair led Anderson to split with Haskett, who later died in 1931 following a car accident and stroke. Mab divorced her husband, singer Charles V. Maynard, and moved in with Anderson. She was a significant help with clerical duties, but had expensive tastes and spent Anderson's money freely. Their daughter Hesper was born in August 1934. Anderson left Maynard following the discovery of her affair with Max's friend, TV producer Jerry Stagg. The combination of losing Anderson, their massive tax debt, and the loss of her home proved too much for Mab, who on the 21st of March 1953, after several attempts, killed herself by breathing car exhaust. Hesper wrote a book, South Mountain Road: A Daughter's Journey of Discovery, describing how following her mother's suicide, she unearthed the fact that her parents never married. Anderson then married Gilda Hazard on the 6th of June 1954. This marriage was a happy one, lasting until Anderson's 1959 death.
The Atheist Who Wrote About Faith
Despite being an atheist, Anderson wrote extensively about faith, morality, and the human struggle with belief. His play Joan of Lorraine, which became the film Joan of Arc in 1948, starred Ingrid Bergman, with a screenplay by Anderson and Andrew Solt. When Bergman and her director changed much of his dialogue to make Joan a plaster saint, he called her a big, dumb, goddamn Swede. This incident highlighted his frustration with the sanitization of his work and his commitment to the integrity of his characters. Anderson's plays often explored the tension between individual conscience and societal expectations, a theme that resonated with audiences during times of political and social upheaval. His historical dramas, such as Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth the Queen, delved into the complexities of power, faith, and the human condition. Anderson's ability to write about faith without being a believer himself added a layer of authenticity to his work, allowing him to explore the depths of human belief and doubt with a clarity that few of his contemporaries could match.
The Man Who Died In Two Places
Anderson died in Stamford, Connecticut, on the 28th of February 1959, two days after suffering a stroke, aged 70. He was cremated, and half of his ashes were scattered by the sea near his home in Stamford. The other half was buried in Anderson Cemetery near his birthplace in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. The inscription on his tombstone reads: Children of dust astray among the stars, Children of earth adrift upon the night, What is there in our darkness or our light, To linger in prose or claim a singing breath, Save the curt history of life isled in death. This final resting place reflected his dual identity as a man of the world and a man of the earth, a writer who had lived a life of contradictions and complexities. His papers and personal effects can be found in various institutions, with the largest collection housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The archive includes over sixty boxes of published and unpublished manuscript materials for plays, poems, and essays, as well as over 2,000 letters, diaries, financial papers, nearly 1,500 family photographs, and personal memorabilia. The archive was placed at the Ransom Center in 1961 by Anderson's widow, Mrs. Gilda Hazard Anderson. Smaller collections of Anderson's papers can be found at institutions around the world, including the Chester Fritz Library, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His legacy lives on through the enduring power of his work and the stories of the people who knew him.