Director

Lorraine Hansberry

Writing

Career Snapshot

Explained

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Directed credits

Emerging

Beginning to build directing work.

TMDB popularity

0.1

Low visibility

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Directed movies: 0Directed series: 0All crew credits: 6

TMDB ID: 103942

IMDb ID: nm0360605

Known for: Writing

Born: May 19, 1930

Died: January 12, 1965

Age: 34

Place of birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Gender: Female

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1959 - 2019

Years active: 61

Average TMDB rating: 6.9

Wikidata: Q461758

Also known as

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry

Frequent jobs

Writer (3)Theatre Play (2)Screenplay (1)

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Biography

Lorraine Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her family challenged legal segregation, giving rise to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. This might have inspired Hansberry to accomplish a first: The opening of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway on March 11, 1959, which was adapted to screenplay form for two feature films. No black female author had done the former before. The play's storyline about the Youngers, a black family trying out an integrationist vision of life in spite of societal racism, resonates with Hansberry's father's legal battle from a decade earlier. Although Hansberry had many writings published and wrote other plays, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window was her only other play that got a production during her life. In 1963, Hansberry received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, leading to her untimely death at the age of 34.

Movies