One of America's foremost playwrights, Albee has penned dozens of plays, including the seminal Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Born in Washington D.C., Albee (it's pronounced AWL-bee) had a number of unhappy educational experiences— he never got along with his rigidly conservative parents and after getting expelled from one school, he was shipped off to a military academy. After dropping out of college and having one final blowup with his adoptive mother, Albee left home for good and moved to Greenwich Village in 1948 at age 20, falling in with a bohemian crowd. He spent a decade working menial jobs before his lover, William Flanagan, sent his play The Zoo Story to friends in Europe, where the first workshop of the play was produced in 1959. But it was his 1962 play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that first earned Albee huge critical and commercial success. Unfortunately, he experienced a string of professional flops in between Virginia and his next hit, 1967's Pulitzer-winning A Delicate Balance, which prompted his descent into a grim period of career-arresting alcoholism. He eventually cleaned up his act and has since penned notable pieces like 1975's Seascape (for which he won another Pulitzer), 1994's Three Tall Women (for which he won yet another Pulitzer), as well as stage adaptations for Breakfast at Tiffany's and Lolita. Although many assumed he had thrown in the towel, he continues to produce original work like The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? and <At Home At The Zoo.

After the critical success of Virginia Woolf, Albee plunged in to a period of alcoholism. Following the end of his booze-fueled relationship with Flanagan, Albee was involved with playwright Terrence McNally for several years. But it was with Canadian sculptor Jonathan Thomas, with him Albee eventually settled down. Sadly Thomas, to whom Albee credits his recovery from alcoholism, passed away in 2005. [Image via Getty]