[Deathwatch] William Gibson, playwright , 94

[Deathwatch Central]

'Miracle Worker' author William Gibson dies at 94
By POLLY ANDERSON

NEW YORK – Playwright William Gibson, whose "The Miracle Worker" has
thrilled audiences for nearly a half-century with the true story of the
deaf-blind Helen Keller's rescue from a world of ignorance, has died.
He was 94.

Gibson died Tuesday in Stockbridge, Mass., according to the Finnerty &
Stevens Funeral Home in Great Barrington.

Gibson wrote a dozen plays, including the Tony-winning "Two for the
Seesaw," but would be forever known for "The Miracle Worker." First
written for television, the story of a young Keller forging a
relationship with her teacher, Annie Sullivan, made its Broadway debut
in 1959.

"Nothing in the theatre this season is so overwhelming as the last
inarticulate but eloquent scene in which a frantic little girl for the
first time understands the meaning of a word and realizes that the
teacher is not a fiend but a friend," New York Times critic Brooks
Atkinson wrote. "One small but blinding ray of light has penetrated the
frightening darkness."

The production, directed by Arthur Penn and starring Anne Bancroft and
12-year-old Patty Duke, earned Tonys in 1960 for best play, best
actress (Bancroft) and best director. It was made into a movie in 1962,
bringing Academy Awards for Bancroft, as best actress, and Duke, best
supporting actress, and Oscar nominations for Penn and Gibson.

"The Miracle Worker" came a year after Gibson's first professionally
produced play, "Two for the Seesaw," also a major success.

The 1958 romantic drama about a straight-laced lawyer who falls in love
with a dancer brought Bancroft her first Tony and also nominations for
best play and best director (Penn.) The 1962 film version starred
Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.

Gibson garnered another Tony nomination in 1965 as co-author of "Golden
Boy," a musical version of the play by Clifford Odets. It starred Sammy
Davis Jr.

"The act of writing makes everything possible to me," Gibson said in a
2003 interview with The Associated Press at his home in Stockbridge,
Mass. "I've always found the business of writing has helped me to
live."

Gibson's last Broadway play was "Golda's Balcony," a one-woman show
starring Tovah Feldshuh as Israeli prime minister Golda Meir during one
of her most difficult times — the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

It was a heavily revised version of "Golda," Gibson's 1977 Broadway
flop that featured a large cast and Bancroft in the title role.

Although the 2003 play marked the last time Gibson wrote for Broadway,
he continued to write novels, short stories and poetry.

Gibson was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1914. A skittish
teenager who found comfort in Broadway shows and the written word,
Gibson studied creative writing at City College.

His first moneymaking piece was a short story published in Esquire for
$150 during the 1930s. At the suggestion of his agent, Gibson began
writing for the stage. He wrote five plays while honing his skills at
the Topeka Civic Theatre in Kansas, then returned to New York and
started work on "Two for the Seesaw," which ran for more than 700
performances in New York.

After selling "Two for the Seesaw" to Hollywood for $600,000, Gibson
moved to the Berkshires with his wife, Margaret, and began writing "The
Miracle Worker."

The story was first done for television's "Playhouse 90." It took three
weeks to write. When he decided to rewrite the teleplay for the stage,
Gibson spent six months on the project.

Keller was born in Alabama in 1880 and stricken deaf and blind at the
age of 19 months. The events described in the play occurred in 1887,
when Sullivan came to teach the 6-year-old, spelling into her hand
until the mute, near-wild girl realized what language was. With
Sullivan at her side for nearly a half-century, Keller grew into a
world-famous author and humanitarian.

Nearing 80 when Gibson's television play was written, Keller was
initially dubious about the idea but later had a positive opinion about
it, according to the book "Helen Keller: A Life" by Dorothy Herrmann.

Coming full circle, "The Miracle Worker" was remade as a television
film in 1979, with Duke in Bancroft's old role as Sullivan and Melissa
Gilbert of "Little House on the Prairie" as Helen. Another TV version,
in 2000, broke with its predecessors by using 8-year-old Hallie Kate
Eisenberg, rather than a teenager, to play little Helen.

The play also is an annual event at Ivy Green, Keller's birthplace in
Tuscumbia, Ala., where it is staged on the grounds where Sullivan
actually taught the girl more than a century ago.

Gibson's wife, Margaret Brenman-Gibson, psychologist and author of a
study on playwright Clifford Odets, died in 2004.

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary