William Gibson
The persistent playwright who wrote The Miracle Worker
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
The persistent playwright who wrote The Miracle Worker
William Gibson
1914–2008
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Before he broke through as a writer, William Gibson acted, played piano, and helped organize the Young Communist League. His wife, a psychoanalyst, supported him financially for the first 15 years of their marriage. Gibson was 45 when his drama The Miracle Worker reached Broadway and won six Tony awards, including Best Play of 1960. “Good things come to those who wait,” he said, “far too long.”
“As a youth in Brooklyn, Gibson loved writing, making his own ‘scrappy imitations’ of boy books such as those of the Rover Boys and Tom Swift,” said The Hartford Courant. After dropping out of college, he sold a few poems and short stories, but wallowed in obscurity until he published his first novel, The Cobweb, at age 40; it became a successful 1955 film with Richard Widmark and Lauren Bacall. His 1958 play Two for the Seesaw, which on Broadway starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft, was turned into a movie featuring Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine.
But Gibson declined to settle in Hollywood, moving instead to Massachusetts to focus on his plays. “In the theater, no one wants to give you any money but you own every word,” he explained. “In the movies, they’ll give you a fortune but you don’t own a comma.”
The Miracle Worker was the inspirational story of how Annie Sullivan taught her blind and deaf pupil, Helen Keller, to communicate with the outside world, said The New York Times. As Sullivan and Keller, Bancroft and Patty Duke repeated their theater roles for the 1962 film version, which won them both Academy Awards and an Oscar nomination for Gibson, who wrote the script. “It was obviously a love letter,” he said. “I like to fall a little in love with my heroines, and the title—from Mark Twain, who said, ‘Helen is a miracle, and Miss Sullivan is the miracle worker’—was meant to show where my affections lay.”
Gibson won a Tony nomination for his 1965 musical adaptation of Clifford Odets’ play Golden Boy. And although his 1977 drama Golda, about Golda Meir, was a flop, he reworked it as the successful 2003 Broadway show Golda’s Balcony.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
What to know when filing a hurricane insurance claim
The Explainer A step-by-step to figure out what insurance will cover and what else you can do beyond filing a claim
By Becca Stanek Published
-
How fees impact your investment portfolio — and how to save on them
The Explainer Even seemingly small fees can take a big bite out of returns
By Becca Stanek Published
-
Enemy without
Cartoons
By The Week Staff Published
-
'Euphoria' star Angus Cloud dies at 25
Speed Read
By Catherine Garcia Published
-
Legendary jazz and pop singer Tony Bennett dies at 96
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
Martin Amis: literary wunderkind who ‘blazed like a rocket’
feature Famed author, essayist and screenwriter died this week aged 73
By The Week Staff Published
-
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk legend, is dead at 84
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Barry Humphries obituary: cerebral satirist who created Dame Edna Everage
feature Actor and comedian was best known as the monstrous Melbourne housewife and Sir Les Patterson
By The Week Staff Published
-
Mary Quant obituary: pioneering designer who created the 1960s look
feature One of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century remembered as the mother of the miniskirt
By The Week Staff Published
-
Phyllida Barlow obituary: renowned sculptor who was also an influential art teacher
feature The teacher and artist found her passion later in life, focusing most of her pieces on the instability of modern architecture
By The Week Staff Published
-
Chaim Topol: Israeli actor beloved for his role in Fiddler on the Roof
feature From military service to an Oscar nomination, Topol followed a unique path to stardom
By The Week Staff Published