Olive Higgins Prouty
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Olive Higgins Prouty (January 10, 1882 – March 24, 1974) was an American novelist, best known for her pioneering consideration of psychotherapy in Now, Voyager and her feminist melodrama Stella Dallas. The latter was used as the basis for two successful films - the 1937 version, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, was nominated for two Academy Awards - and a radio serial which was broadcast daily for 18 years, despite Prouty's legal efforts (since she had not authorized the sale of the broadcast rights, and was displeased with her characters' portrayals).
Prouty is also known for her philanthropic works, and for her resulting association with Sylvia Plath, whom she encountered as a result of endowing a Smith College scholarship for "promising young writers". She supported Plath financially in the wake of Plath's unsuccesful 1953 suicide attempt; subsequently, Plath used Prouty as the basis of the character of "Philomena Guinea" in her 1963 novel, The Bell Jar.
In 1961, Prouty wrote her memoirs but, as her public profile had diminished, could not find a publisher; she had them printed at her own expense.
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[edit] Family
Olive married Lewis Prouty in 1907; they had three children, two of whom predeceased their mother.
[edit] Retirement
Prouty wrote her last novel in 1951, the year of her husband's death. For the rest of her life she lived quietly in the house in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she had moved in 1913. In old age she found comfort in her friendships, her charitable work, and the Unitarian church, First Parish in Brookline, which the Proutys had joined in the early 1920s.
[edit] Bibliography
- Bobbie General Manager
- Conflict
- Fabia
- The Fifth Wheel
- Lisa Vale, Now, Voyager and Home Port (all focusing on the same fictional family)
- Pencil Shavings: Memoirs
- The Star in the Window
- Stella Dallas
- White Fawn
