50 Fun Facts About A Streetcar Named Desire

Which actress won her second Best Actress Oscar playing Blanche DuBois in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire?

Vivien Leigh got the film part only after Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland turned it down; she had already played Blanche on the London stage.

Which actor, almost unknown when cast, played Stanley on Broadway and in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire?

Marlon Brando was cast after the producer had first wanted John Garfield, and the film earned him the first of four straight Best Actor nominations.

Which animated series staged a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire, titled Oh, Streetcar!, in a 1992 episode?

The Simpsons cast Marge as Blanche opposite Ned Flanders as Stanley, and a song mocking New Orleans drew so many complaints that Bart apologized in the next episode's chalkboard gag.

Which garment did Stanley's costume in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire help turn into fashionable outerwear?

The T-shirt was still a navy undergarment that veterans had begun wearing with their uniform trousers, until the film helped make it stylish on its own.

Which body of law does Stanley cite in Scene Two of A Streetcar Named Desire to claim a share of Stella's property?

The Napoleonic Code still shaped Louisiana law from its French colonial past, so Stanley argues that if Stella was swindled out of the family estate, he was swindled too.

Which star of The African Queen won the 1951 Best Actor Oscar, the one acting award A Streetcar Named Desire missed?

Humphrey Bogart's win stopped a clean sweep: the film's Blanche, Stella and Mitch all took Oscars, making it the first picture to win three acting awards.

In Scene Three of A Streetcar Named Desire, what does Blanche ask Mitch to hang over the bare light bulb?

A paper lantern softens the glare so that Mitch never sees her clearly, and in Scene Nine he tears it off to look at her in the full electric light.

What do contestants do in the Streetcar Named Desire contest that closes New Orleans's Tennessee Williams festival?

Contestants shout Stella's name up at actors on a gallery above Jackson Square, as Stanley does after the poker night; the contest has closed the festival since 1996.

How did censors make the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire end differently from Tennessee Williams's play?

Stella leaves Stanley in the film, fleeing upstairs with the baby at the censors' insistence; on stage she stays and lets him console her.

What is the name of the lost Mississippi plantation where Blanche and Stella grew up in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Belle Reve, French for beautiful dream, was lost on a mortgage after generations of family mismanagement, which is why Blanche arrives at her sister's door with a trunk.

From which Mississippi town, where she taught school, does Blanche arrive in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Laurel is a real Mississippi town, which the 1951 film swapped for the invented Auriol, and a salesman with contacts there brings Stanley the gossip about Blanche.

Which school subject did Blanche DuBois teach in Mississippi before coming to New Orleans in A Streetcar Named Desire?

English was her subject, and she says she is taking time off for her nerves; in truth she was dismissed over an affair with a teenage student.

After riding the Desire line in A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche must transfer to a streetcar with which name?

Cemeteries was a real New Orleans line, and its pairing with Desire introduces the death and longing that run through the whole play.

The Kowalskis' New Orleans street in A Streetcar Named Desire is named after which place in Greek myth?

Elysian Fields is a real New Orleans avenue, and the resting place of the heroic and virtuous is a pointed name for the shabby block where Blanche's journey ends.

Which sport does Stanley go off to play as A Streetcar Named Desire opens, with Stella following to watch?

Bowling keeps Stanley out of the flat when Blanche arrives, so a neighbor has to fetch Stella from the alley while Blanche waits alone inside.

What does Stanley toss up to Stella on the landing in the opening moments of A Streetcar Named Desire?

A package of meat from the butcher is his first gesture in the play, and the two women sitting on the front steps crow over its innuendo.

Which drink does Blanche secretly help herself to while waiting alone in the Kowalski flat in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Whiskey from the closet is her first act alone on stage: she takes a quick drink, rinses the tumbler and puts everything back, then presents herself as a lady who rarely touches it.

In Scene Two of A Streetcar Named Desire, which items in Blanche's trunk convince Stanley she has cheated Stella?

Furs and jewelry spill out as he ransacks the trunk, sure they cost thousands, and Stella has to explain that the gems are only rhinestones.

What news about Stella does Stanley let slip to Blanche at the end of Scene Two of A Streetcar Named Desire?

She is pregnant, and Stella had told him to keep quiet about it so that the news would not land on her sister's delicate nerves all at once.

During the poker night in Scene Three of A Streetcar Named Desire, what does a drunken Stanley hurl out of the window?

The radio goes through the window because Blanche has switched it back on to dance with Mitch, and when Stella yells at him for it, Stanley hits her.

Which director staged A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway in 1947 and then made the 1951 film version?

Elia Kazan kept most of his Broadway cast and had the apartment set designed to appear smaller as the film goes on, to mirror the tension between the characters.

Which actress originated Blanche DuBois on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire but was passed over for the 1951 film?

Jessica Tandy won a Tony for the role, but the film's producer wanted more box-office appeal, which made her the only one of the four Broadway leads left out.

Which actor won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Mitch in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire?

Karl Malden had created Mitch on Broadway, and he was nominated again three years later as the priest in On the Waterfront.

Which actress won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Stella in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire?

Kim Hunter was blacklisted from film and television later in the 1950s, then found a new audience as the chimpanzee scientist Zira in Planet of the Apes.

Which fact about Blanche's dead husband did Hollywood's censors cut from the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire?

He was gay, and on stage Blanche tells how she found him with an older man; in the film she speaks only of scorning his sensitive nature.

Alex North's score for the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire was one of Hollywood's first in which musical style?

Jazz suited the New Orleans setting, and North wrote it in short cues that follow each character's state of mind, which earned him an Oscar nomination.

Which major American award for drama did A Streetcar Named Desire win in 1948, months after its Broadway opening?

The Pulitzer Prize came alongside the New York Drama Critics' Circle award, but that season's Tony for best play went to Mister Roberts instead.

A Streetcar Named Desire is usually classed in which literary genre, shared with William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor?

Southern Gothic dwells on violence, cruelty and the decay of the plantation South, all of which the play packs into a two-room flat.

Which earlier Tennessee Williams play, his 1944 breakthrough, came before A Streetcar Named Desire?

The Glass Menagerie took Williams from obscurity to fame, and its fragile Laura was based on his sister Rose.

Tennessee Williams's sister Rose, a model for Blanche DuBois, was left incapacitated by which psychiatric procedure?

A lobotomy left Rose incapacitated, and the success of A Streetcar Named Desire enabled Williams to finance her care.

Which upstairs neighbor shelters Stella and Blanche after Stanley's violence in Scene Three of A Streetcar Named Desire?

Eunice and her husband Steve are the landlords upstairs, and their own stormy marriage is a picture of what the Kowalskis could become.

Which keepsake from a girl who died does Mitch show Blanche during Scene Three of A Streetcar Named Desire?

A cigarette case, silver and inscribed with a line from an Elizabeth Barrett Browning sonnet, gives the pair something in common: each has lost a sweetheart.

Which Spanish-speaking friend of Stanley's makes up the poker table with Mitch and Steve in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Pablo Gonzales is written as coarse and loud, and Nick Dennis played him both in the original Broadway cast and in the 1951 film.

What was the name of Blanche's young husband, whose suicide haunts her throughout A Streetcar Named Desire?

Allan Grey was a boy she married very young, and she still keeps his love letters and poems in her trunk, snatching them back when Stanley picks them up.

Which dance tune, heard only by Blanche, returns in A Streetcar Named Desire whenever she recalls her husband's death?

The Varsouviana is the polka that was playing on the dance floor the night she turned on her husband, and in her mind it only stops at the sound of a gunshot.

What cruel present does Stanley hand Blanche at her birthday supper in A Streetcar Named Desire?

A one-way bus ticket back to Mississippi is his way of throwing her out, handed over at a table where the place set for Mitch stays empty.

Which old admirer, now an oil millionaire, does Blanche imagine will rescue her in A Streetcar Named Desire?

Shep Huntleigh is the old beau she tries to wire for money, and by Scene Ten she claims he has sent a telegram inviting her on a Caribbean cruise aboard his yacht.

With what makeshift weapon does Blanche try to hold Stanley off in Scene Ten of A Streetcar Named Desire?

A broken bottle, smashed on the table, is all she has, and he forces her to drop it; the film ends the scene on her shattering a mirror instead.

To whom does Blanche speak her famous closing line about relying on strangers in A Streetcar Named Desire?

The doctor has come with a matron to take her to a mental hospital, and once he orders the matron to let go of her and speaks politely, she walks out calmly on his arm.

In the final scene of A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche imagines dying at sea after eating which unwashed fruit?

A grape is her fancy as she dresses for a trip that does not exist: she hopes to die of it one day and be buried at sea.

Which British stage star directed the 1949 London premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Aldwych Theatre?

Laurence Olivier cast Bonar Colleano as Stanley, and the production's Blanche went on to play the part in the Hollywood film two years later.

Which 1976 film was the next after A Streetcar Named Desire to win three of the four acting Oscars?

Network matched the record a quarter of a century on, and it was 2022 before a third film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, did the same.

Which composer and conductor turned A Streetcar Named Desire into an opera first staged in San Francisco in 1998?

André Previn conducted the premiere himself, with the soprano Renée Fleming singing Blanche and the part of Stanley written for a baritone.

Which 2013 Woody Allen film have critics read as a loose reworking of A Streetcar Named Desire?

Blue Jasmine won Cate Blanchett the Best Actress Oscar; she had played Blanche herself on stage in Sydney in 2009.

Which star won a Golden Globe as Blanche in the 1984 television film of A Streetcar Named Desire?

Ann-Margret played opposite Treat Williams as Stanley, and the production won four Emmys, though none of them went to its actors.

Which Irish actor won London's top stage acting award as Stanley in the Almeida Theatre's A Streetcar Named Desire?

Paul Mescal starred opposite Patsy Ferran as Blanche, and the same ceremony also named the production best revival and Anjana Vasan best supporting actress.

Which American painter's 1948 canvas Poker Night shows a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire?

Thomas Hart Benton painted it as a surprise gift for the play's producer, Irene Selznick, and Broadway's Blanche was offended by how revealing he made her dress.

In early drafts of A Streetcar Named Desire, set in Chicago, the future Stanley came from which immigrant community?

Italian was his first background, under the name Lucio, and a later draft set in Atlanta made him an Irish American called Ralph before Williams settled on a Polish American.

At which Broadway theatre, named after an actress, did A Streetcar Named Desire open in December 1947?

The Ethel Barrymore Theatre hosted the play's 1992 Broadway revival as well, and it has never been sold or renamed since it opened in 1928.

Under which star sign does Blanche say she was born in Scene Five of A Streetcar Named Desire, to Stanley's scorn?

Virgo, the Virgin, makes Stanley guffaw with contempt; she had guessed that he was an Aries, and he turns out to be a Capricorn, the Goat.