A Newly Discovered Photo of Tennessee Williams!

The Story of How We Made the Movie...

If you Google Tennessee Williams you'll get pages and pages of hits, but it's not often something new turns up. As we've made U & Me & Tennessee we've had access to the Konrad Hopkins Archive - run by the Konrad Hopkins Archive Charitable Trust - and the wealth of fascinating material stored there is really impressive.

For instance - this photo of Tenn, his dog Mr. Moon and his grandfather, taken in the early 1950's in Key West, Florida. I've seen other photos taken within seconds of this one, but never before had I seen this exact one.

Tennessee sent this photo to Konrad Hopkins after Konrad had sent Tenn some photos of himself at Tenn's request (see our website:

www.u-me-tennessee.co.uk/letters.htm).

Tennessee's description of the photo is charming:

"I'm enclosing a picture taken a couple of months ago in Key West, before I got into this hassle (the Broadway production of his play CAMINO REAL). The gentleman on my left is an English bull puppy five months old named Mr. Moon and the one on my right is my 96 year-old grandfather. At any rate he will be 96 in April. He is my only reason for maintaining any sort of residence in the States, as he is contented only with me."

- Tennessee Williams in a letter to Konrad Hopkins dated February 28, 1953.

The Konrad Hopkins Archive is mostly housed at the University of Paisley Library in Scotland, and in addition to a great deal of Tennessee Williams material never seen before, there is a substantial collection dealing with the late JAMES T. FARRELL (author of STUDS LONIGAN and many other novels, stories and essays - Konrad was a close literary associate of Farrell's, and he edited a number of Farrell's books and stories), BURT REYNOLDS, and the truly remarkable 19th century author WILLIAM SHARP / FIONA MACLEOD.

We have been extremely fortunate to have had unfettered access to the Hopkins archive, and this is one of the main reasons that

U & Me & Tennessee

is such a unique and completely new type of movie.

Copyright Paul Birchard 2007 All Rights Reserved.