He became one of the first Angry Young Men (anti-establishment writers of the 1950s) of British theatre with his debut play, Look Back in Anger 1956. Other plays include The Entertainer 1957, Luther 1960, Inadmissible Evidence 1964, A Patriot for Me 1965, West of Suez 1971, and Watch It Come Down 1976. He returned 1992 unsuccessfully to Jimmy Porter, the hero of the epoch-making Look Back in Anger. Osborne was born into a lower middle class family in London. In the first volume of his autobiography, A Better Class of Person 1981, he describes with great candour his love for his father, a quiet, modest man who died when Osborne was young, and his frank detestation of his mother, a woman whose coldness, ignorance, and calculation he never forgave. In the second volume, Almost a Gentleman 1991, his anger had not lessened, his opinions about his mother and others to whom he took exception remaining vitriolic, uninhibited, and unapologetic. The same passion, scintillating intelligence and righteous indignation characterizes Damn you, England 1994, a collection of occasional writings. Look Back in Anger, which appeared when he was in his late 20s, quickly made him a celebrity, and brought a new energy and urgency into British drama. Its central character's self-pitying rages against the "system" caught exactly the mood of a generation disillusioned by the gulf between their expectations and the drab reality of a postwar Britain in decline. The play paved the way for the extraordinary generation of playwrights that included Harold Pinter, John Arden, Robert Bolt, Edward Bond, and Arnold Wesker. His plays are first and foremost character studies, although they also reflect broader social issues. Other works include Hotel in Amsterdam 1968, West of Suez 1971, Too Young to Fight, Too Old to Forget 1985, and Dejavu 1992. Osborne also had a successful career in films. Forming a film company with the director Tony Richardson, he made highly acclaimed versions of Look Back in Anger, starring Richard Burton, and The Entertainer, starring Laurence Olivier. His adaptations for cinema include Tom Jones 1963, which brought him an Oscar for best screenplay, Hedda Gabler 1972, and The Picture of Dorian Gray 1973.
