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| Laurence Stallings | |
|---|---|
| Name | Laurence Stallings |
| Birth date | 1894-04-04 |
| Death date | 1968-06-12 |
| Birth place | Macon, Georgia, United States |
| Death place | New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Playwright, screenwriter, novelist, critic |
| Notable works | What Price Glory?, Plumes, The Doughboys |
Laurence Stallings was an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and critic whose work about World War I helped shape interwar American literature and drama. Best known for coauthoring the play What Price Glory? and for his memoir Plumes, Stallings blended firsthand combat experience with literary craft, influencing contemporaries in American literature, Broadway, and early Hollywood. His career intersected with figures from O. Henry Award–era writers to studio-era directors and producers.
Stallings was born in Macon, Georgia, into a milieu connected to Southern letters and civic institutions like Mercer University and regional newspapers such as the Macon Telegraph. He attended preparatory schools that prepared students for institutions like Emory University and studied in environments shaped by the post-Reconstruction South and cultural movements including the Lost Cause of the Confederacy's lingering influence on Southern identity. His early literary interests placed him in correspondence networks with figures associated with the Harlem Renaissance era and with editors of periodicals linked to The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine.
Stallings enlisted during the period of American mobilization for World War I and served with units connected to the American Expeditionary Forces under commanders who served in campaigns like the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Wounded in action, he experienced the medical evacuation and care systems centered around base hospitals and convalescent units influenced by institutions such as the Red Cross and military hospitals in France. His injuries and recovery placed him amid veteran communities later associated with organizations like the American Legion and public debates following the Treaty of Versailles about veterans' benefits and commemoration.
Drawing on wartime experience, Stallings produced the memoir Plumes and later novels and essays that entered conversations in Modernist circles and among reviewers at outlets such as The New Republic and The Nation. His wartime portraiture resonated with contemporaries including Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edith Wharton, and critics associated with the New Criticism movement. Stallings' nonfiction and fiction appeared alongside works distributed by publishing houses like Random House and periodicals that serialized contemporary veterans' accounts in the interwar years. He received attention in literary histories alongside authors of Lost Generation provenance and influenced playwrights and novelists engaged with themes prominent in Prohibition-era culture and the debates surrounding the Great Depression.
Stallings coauthored the Broadway play What Price Glory? in collaboration with figures from theatrical and cinematic circles linked to Maxwell Anderson-era dramatists and producers associated with the Shubert Archive and Princess Theatre. The play's success led to adaptations and collaborations in the studio system, involving studios such as Paramount Pictures and creative personnel who worked with directors from the silent-to-sound transition like Raoul Walsh, John Ford, and producers connected to the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Stallings wrote screenplays and treatments that brought him into contact with actors of the period who appeared on both stage and screen, including performers associated with Broadway theatre and early Hollywood stars represented by agencies in New York City and Los Angeles. His theatrical techniques influenced later dramatists working in the milieu of American drama and in repertory movements linked to companies like the Group Theatre.
Stallings' personal life intersected with cultural institutions and municipal life in cities such as New York City and with social networks that included veterans' organizations and literary salons frequented by members of The Algonquin Round Table and journalists from newspapers like the New York Times. In later years he continued to write and to advise on adaptations as Hollywood entered the studio era and as American letters confronted postwar realities including debates at institutions like Columbia University and foundations such as the Guggenheim Foundation. He died in New York City in 1968, leaving a legacy cited in studies of American theatre history and the literature of World War I.
Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:People from Macon, Georgia