Kingsley, Sidney

▪ 1996

      (SIDNEY KIRSHNER), U.S. playwright (b. Oct. 18, 1906, New York, N.Y.—d. March 20, 1995, Oakland, N.J.), explored the social ills of the Depression era in exhaustively researched and realistic plays, notably the Pulitzer Prize-winning Men in White (1933; filmed 1934), which chronicled the lives of medical interns and proselytized in favour of legalizing abortion, and Dead End (1935; filmed 1937), an indictment against slums as a haven for crime. After earning a B.A. from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., Kingsley embarked on a brief acting career while at the same time writing plays. Both Men in White and Detective Story (1949; filmed 1951), a compelling melodrama focusing on the way that the personal life of a detective influenced his professional judgment, became narrative models for future hospital and police dramas. Another play, The Patriots (1943), examined the ideologies of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and won the New York Drama Critics Circle plaque as best play. Some of Kingsley's later plays, including Darkness at Noon (1951; a dramatization of Arthur Koestler's novel) and Night Life (1962), were poorly received.

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