Lillian Hellman

I belonged, on my mother's side, to a banking, storekeeping family from Alabama and Sunday dinners were large, with highspirited talk and laughter from the older people of who did what to whom... Lillian Hellman

Hellman's Alabama family settled in Demopolis where her great grandfather Isaac Marx, a European immigrant arriving in 1844, built a business dynasty for his sons. The Marxes remained gracious contributors to the Demopolis community well into the 20th Century. But after Hellman based her famous plays The Little Foxes and Another Part of the Forest on them, they reacted uncharitably to any mention of the prodigal playwright.

Hellman was a childhood visitor to the scenic town cradled in the fork of two rivers. She remembered local landmarks for her dramatic settings in both Foxes and Forest. Mansions Lyon Hall and Bluff Hall inspired the play's Lionnet. Still occupying a major corner of downtown Demopolis, her great grandfather's Marx Bank is the actual setting for the greedy family machinations within Foxes.

Director William Wyler's film version of The Little Foxes starring Bette Davis as Regina Hubbard Giddens, a role influenced by Hellman's grandmother Sophie Marx, received nine Oscar nominations in 1941. Tallulah Bankhead successfully portrayed Regina, a post war Scarlett O'Hara, during the play's first Broadway run in 1939. Depicting the young Regina in Hellman's Another Part of the Forest, actress Patricia Neal earned Broadway's first Tony Award in 1947 for her performance in the Demopolis based play.