Alfred Uhry Biography

Alfred Uhry
At Writers Theatre:  Parade

Mr. Uhry has the distinct honor of being the only American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award and a Tony Award. A graduate of Brown University, Uhry left his native Atlanta for the bright lights of New York City as a newlywed in 1959 to become a lyricist. Struggling to make ends meet for almost twenty years, he hit success in 1976 with The Robber Bridegroom—a bawdy Southern fairy tale based on a Eudora Welty story for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical. (The Tony Award went to the writers of A Chorus Line.) Ten years later he wrote his first play, the smash hit, Pulitzer Prize-winning Driving Miss Daisy. He would later win an Academy Award for the movie adaptation starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Soon after, the Olympic Games' Cultural Olympiad commissioned Uhry to write a play for the Summer 1996 Olympics in his hometown of Atlanta. Thus the Tony Award-winning Last Night of Ballyhoo was born. Known for writing charming, engaging yet somewhat quirky Southern characters, Mr. Uhry's latest endeavor, Parade is a darker look at the nuances and history of the South. This chilling true-life story of the lynching of Leo Frank won a second Tony Award for Mr. Uhry as Best Book of a Musical in 1999.