… was born somewhere in Virginia, adopted two weeks
later and taken to Larchmont, New York in Westchester County, where he grew up.
Albee's adoptive father, Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of vaudeville magnate
Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. Here the young Edward first
gained familiarity with the theatre. His adoptive mother, Reed's third wife,
Frances (Cotter), tried to raise Albee to fit into their social circles. Albee
attended the Clinton High School, then the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey,
from which he was expelled. He then was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy
in Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he was dismissed in less than a year. He enrolled
at The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut,
graduating in 1946. His formal education continued at Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes and
refusing to attend compulsory chapel.
Albee left home for good when he was in his late
teens. In a later interview, he said: "I never felt comfortable with the
adoptive parents. I don't think they knew how to be parents. I probably didn't
know how to be a son, either." More recently, he told interviewer Charlie
Rose that he was "thrown out" because his parents wanted him to
become a "corporate thug" and did not approve of his aspirations to
become a writer.
Albee moved into New York's Greenwich Village, where
he supported himself with odd jobs while learning to write plays. His first
play, The Zoo Story, was first staged in Berlin. The less than diligent student
later dedicated much of his time to promoting American university theatre. He
currently is a distinguished professor at the University of Houston, where he
teaches an exclusive playwriting course. His plays are published by Dramatists
Play Service and Samuel French, Inc..
Albee is openly gay and states that he first knew he was
gay at age 12 and a half. He has insisted, however, that he does not want to be
known as a "gay writer", stating in his acceptance speech for the
2011 Lambda Literary Foundation's Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement:
"A writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able to transcend self.
I am not a gay writer. I am a writer who happens to be gay."
Albee's longtime partner, Jonathan Thomas, a sculptor,
died on May 2, 2005, from bladder cancer.