The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Osborne, John James
Osborne, John
James
(
1929
–
94
), playwright, born in Fulham, London, the son of a commercial artist who died in
1940
; the first volume of his autobiography, A Better Class of Person (
1981
), describes his childhood in suburbia, his brief spell as a journalist, and his years as an actor in provincial repertory, during which he began to write plays, the first of which was performed in
1950
. He made his name with
Look Back in Anger
(
1956
, pub.
1957
), which was followed by Epitaph for George Dillon (
1957
, pub.
1958
; written in the mid-1950s in collaboration with Anthony Creighton); The Entertainer (
1957
, which starred Laurence Olivier as Archie Rice, a faded survivor of the great days of music hall); Luther (
1961
, based on the life of
Martin
Luther
, with much emphasis on his physical as well as his spiritual problems); Inadmissible Evidence (
1964
, the tragedy of...
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