Tuesday, July 14, 2026

RIP Edward Albee, Winner of Three Pulitzer Prizes, the Great Playwright of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Age 88

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Edward Albee has died at age 88. The great playwright of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” died in Montauk on Long Island.

Albee won three Pulitzer Prizes but not for “Virginia Woolf.” They were in 1967 for “A Delicate Balance,” in 1975 for “Seascape,”and 1994 for Three Tall Women.

His Tony Awards were for “Virginia Woolf” in 1963, 2002 for “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?,” and a special lifetime award in 2005.

Of course his most famous play is “Virginia Woolf,” which was made into a movie by Mike Nichols and became one of the all time classics with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis, and George Segal. “Virginia Woolf” in all forms earned so much money over the years that Albee started a foundation in his own name in Montauk for writers and visual artists.

Albee’s death is a major milestone, he was up there with Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as the greatest American playwrights and dramatists.

Here’s the full list of his plays:

  • The Zoo Story (1958)
  • The Death of Bessie Smith (1959)
  • The Sandbox (1959)
  • Fam and Yam (1959)
  • The American Dream (1960)
  • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1961–1962)
  • The Ballad of the Sad Café (1963) (adapted from the novella by Carson McCullers)
  • Tiny Alice (1964)
  • Malcolm (1965) (adapted from the novel by James Purdy)
  • A Delicate Balance (1966)
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s (adapted from the novel by Truman Capote) (1966)
  • Everything in the Garden (1967)
  • Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1968)
  • All Over (1971)
  • Seascape (1974)
  • Listening (1975)
  • Counting the Ways (1976)
  • The Lady from Dubuque (1977–1979)
  • Lolita (adapted from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov) (1981)
  • The Man Who Had Three Arms (1981)
  • Finding the Sun (1983)
  • Marriage Play (1986–1987)
  • Three Tall Women (1990–1991)
  • The Lorca Play (1992)
  • Fragments (1993)
  • The Play About the Baby (1996)
  • Occupant (2001)
  • The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002)
  • Knock! Knock! Who’s There!? (2003)
  • Peter & Jerry, retitled in 2009 to At Home at the Zoo (Act One: Homelife. Act Two: The Zoo Story) (2004)
  • Me Myself and I (2007)

 

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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