3. William Saroyan was born on
August 31, 1908 in Fresno,
California to Armenak and Takoohi
Saroyan, Armenian immigrants
from Bitlis, Ottoman Empire. His
father came to New York in 1905
and started preaching in Armenian
Apostolic Churches
At the age of three, after his father's death,
Saroyan, along with his brother and sister,
was placed in an orphanage in Oakland,
California. He later went on to describe his
experience in the orphanage in his writings.
Five years later, the family reunited in Fresno,
where his mother, Takoohi, had already
secured work at a cannery.
4. Saroyan decided to become a writer after his mother showed him some of his
father's writings. A few of his early short articles were published in
Overland Monthly
Many of Saroyan's stories were based on his childhood experiences
among the Armenian-American fruit growers of the San Joaquin Valley
or dealt with the rootlessness of the immigrant. The short story
collection My Name is Aram (1940), an international bestseller, was
about a young boy and the colorful characters of his immigrant
family. It has been translated into many languages.
5. As a writer, Saroyan made his breakthrough in Story magazine with The
Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), the title taken
from the nineteenth century song of the same title. The protagonist is a
young, starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden
society.
6. Saroyan is probably best remembered for his play The Time of Your
Life (1939), set in a waterfront saloon in San Francisco. It won
a Pulitzer Prize, which Saroyan refused on the grounds that
commerce should not judge the arts; he did accept the New York
Drama Critics' Circle award. The play was adapted into a 1948 film
starring James Cagney.
7. Before the war, Saroyan worked on the screenplay of Golden
Boy (1939), based on Clifford Odets's play, but he never had much
success in Hollywood and after his disappointment with the Human
Comedy film project, he never permitted any Hollywood screen
adaptation of any of his novels regardless of his financial straits.
8. Saroyan has a
correspondence with
writer Sanora
Babb that began in
1932 and ended in 1941,
that grew into an
unrequited love
affair on Saroyan's
part.
9. personal life…
Saroyan has a correspondence with
writer Sanora Babb that began in 1932
and ended in 1941, that grew into an
unrequited love affair on Saroyan's part.
In 1943, Saroyan married actress Carol
Marcus (1924–2003; also known as Carol
Grace), with whom he had two
children, Aram, who became an author
and published a book about his
father, and Lucy, who became an
actress. By the late 1940s, Saroyan's
drinking and gambling took a toll on his
marriage, and in 1949, upon returning
from an extended European trip, he filed
for divorce. They were remarried briefly
in 1951 and divorced again in 1952 with
Marcus later claiming in her
autobiography, Among the Porcupines:
A Memoir, that Saroyan was abusive.
Carol subsequently married
actor Walter Matthau.
