Bill Text: CA SR122 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Enrolled

California Senate Resolution 122 (Prior Session Legislation)

Bill Title: Relative to the 65th anniversary of the death of Eugene Gladstone O’Neill

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)

Status: (Passed) 2018-08-23 - Read. Adopted. (Ayes 39. Noes 0. Page 5629.) [SR122 Detail]

Download: California-2017-SR122-Enrolled.html

Enrolled August 24, 2018

Passed IN Senate August 23, 2018

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Resolution

No. 122

Introduced by Senators Hertzberg and Glazer

August 08, 2018

Relative to the 65th anniversary of the death of Eugene Gladstone O’Neill

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SR 122, Hertzberg.

WHEREAS, Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a hotel room in New York to the famous actor James O’Neill and his wife, and he would grow up to be America’s Shakespeare and the most honored American playwright; and

WHEREAS, Spending most of his young life at a boarding school, O’Neill found a release from his chaotic family life and schoolwork through literature; and

WHEREAS, O’Neill discovered freedom by turning to a life at sea, where he ultimately came to grapple with the hardships of poverty and loneliness, and even attempted suicide. These experiences resonated with O’Neill and later surfaced through his plays; and

WHEREAS, O’Neill wrote 38 plays, as well as numerous one-act plays, and he received three Pulitzer Prizes within his lifetime for his works: Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, and Strange Interlude; and

WHEREAS, Struggling with the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease and believing his career as a writer was over, O’Neill moved to California with his wife, Carlotta, where they lived in Danville at Tao House, now a national historic site; and

WHEREAS, Reinvigorated by his years in California, O’Neill would write the three greatest plays of his storied career: The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten, the second of which posthumously earned him a fourth Pulitzer Prize and is often listed as the greatest American play ever written; and

WHEREAS, In 1936, O’Neill became the first, and to this day, the only American playwright to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. His plays are continuously in performance all over the world; and

WHEREAS, On November 27, 1953, unable to write for 10 years and suffering from health complications, Eugene O’Neill died at 65 years of age in a hotel room by the Charles River in Boston; and

WHEREAS, In 1976, O’Neill’s California home, Tao House, was established as a national historic site; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California,That Eugene Gladstone O’Neill be honored on the 65th anniversary of his death at 65 years of age for his influence as a playwright on the American theatre, his extraordinary California plays, and his unparalleled contributions to literature and drama; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.