Alfred Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter known for Driving Miss Daisy, which won him a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and an Academy Award. He struggled in the theatre before finding success with The Robber Bridegroom in 1975. Driving Miss Daisy opened in 1987 and was initially seen as non-serious, but ultimately tackled issues with heart and offered a unique perspective. It was the first in the Atlanta trilogy, completed by The Last Night of Ballyhoo and Parade.
Alfred Uhry is an American playwright and screenwriter, born in 1936. He is best known for his magnum opus, Driving Miss Daisy, part of his Atlanta trilogy. In 2006 he earned the honor of being the first writer ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award and an Academy Award for his dramatic works by him.
He spent his early years in Atlanta, Georgia, and this upbringing would influence his later style and give his work a sense of place. He attended Druid Hills High School and then Brown University, where he majored in both English and drama. Alfred Uhry then went to New York City and began teaching English at Calhoun School.
For many years Alfred Uhry struggled in the theatre, working as a librettist and lyricist on Broadway. His early works were all commercial and critical failures and included such works as America’s Sweetheart and Here’s Where I Belong. Finally, in 1975, he nailed it with The Robber Bridegroom, a collaboration with Robert Waldman. The Robber Bridegroom was a substantial success and Alfred Uhry received a Tony nomination for the piece, although he ultimately didn’t win. However, this established his path as a serious Broadway playwright.
Uhry continued to work in theater for the next decade, but it wasn’t until 1987 that he had his next real break. Driving Miss Daisy opened at the Studio Theater and was an immediate critical success. Initially, the game seemed to be a fairly non-serious work, and many were skeptical of its value. The central premise of an elderly Southern Jewish woman and her black chauffeur seemed to many quite mundane, if not downright offensive, in its depiction of race relations. Ultimately, however, the consensus was that the show tackled issues with heart and offered a unique perspective, while also bringing to the fore stage character archetypes that would normally be relegated to a supporting cast.
Morgan Freeman starred opposite Dana Ivey in the original production of Driving Miss Daisy, and the comedy ultimately earned Alfred Uhry a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Two years later, Uhry adapted the script into a screenplay, starring Morgan Freeman opposite Jessica Tandy, and the film won the 1989 Best Picture Oscar, and Uhry won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.
Driving Miss Daisy was the first in the Atlanta trilogy, completed by The Last Night of Ballyhoo in 1997 and Parade in 1998. The plays all draw from the personal experiences of Alfred Uhry, who was himself a Jew growing up in the South. Ballyhoo’s Last Night deals with abandoning his Jewish heritage while adjusting to life in America, while Parade tells the real story of a Jewish factory worker who was falsely convicted of killing a girl in Atlanta in 1913 and spent 70 years in prison. Last Night of Ballyhoo won the Tony Award for Best Comedy, while Parade won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.
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