Person
Lorraine Hansberry
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Lorraine Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her family challenged legal segregation, giving rise to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. This might have in…
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Lorraine Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her family challenged legal segregation, giving rise to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. This might have inspired Hansberry to accomplish a first: The opening of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway on March 11, 1959, which was adapted to screenplay form for two feature films. No black female author had done the former before. The play's storyline about the Youngers, a black family trying out an integrationist vision of life in spite of societal racism, resonates with Hansberry's father's legal battle from a decade earlier. Although Hansberry had many writings published and wrote other plays, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window was her only other play that got a production during her life. In 1963, Hansberry received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, leading to her untimely death at the age of 34.
Filmography
Movies and shows, newest first
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2019
National Theatre Live: Les Blancs
Movie Writer
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2017
Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes / Feeling Heart
Movie Self (archive footage)
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2008
A Raisin in the Sun
Movie Theatre Play
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1982
American Playhouse
TV show Theatre Play
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1978
Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement
Movie Self (Archive Footage)
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1972
To Be Young, Gifted and Black
Movie Writer
- 1969
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1961
A Raisin in the Sun
Movie Screenplay
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1959
The David Susskind Show
TV show Self
