O'Neill, Eugene Gladstone (1888–1953)

US playwright. He is widely regarded as the greatest US dramatist. His plays, although tragic, are characterized by a down-to-earth quality and are often experimental in form, influenced by German expressionism, Strindberg, and Freud. They were a radical departure from the romantic and melodramatic American theatre entertainments. They include Beyond the Horizon (1920) and Anna Christie (1921), both of which won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as The Emperor Jones (1920), The Hairy Ape (1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), The Iceman Cometh (1946), and the posthumously produced autobiographical drama A Long Day's Journey into Night (1956; written 1941), also a Pulitzer prizewinner. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936.

O'Neill was born in New York City, the son of stage actors James O'Neill and Ella Quinlan. His tumultuous family relationships would later provide much material for his plays.

He left Princeton University after a year to learn about life but nearly died from heavy drinking and a suicide attempt while living a derelict's lifestyle. The sailors, prostitutes, and other down-and-out people he met during this period, like the members of his family, people his plays. His other plays include The Straw 1921; All God's Chillun Got Wings 1924; The Great God Brown 1925; Strange Interlude 1928 (Pulitzer Prize), a revolutionary five-hour drama; Mourning Becomes Electra 1931, a trilogy based on the story of Orestes from Greek mythology; and A Moon for the Misbegotten 1952. Many of his plays were first produced by the Provincetown Players in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was largely through the work of O'Neill that the American theater became a forum for serious and significant ideas.