Rollie Lynn Riggs (August 31, 1899 – June 30, 1954) was an American author, poet, playwright and screenwriter. His 1931 play '' Green Grow The Lilacs'' was adapted into the landmark 1943

musical Musical is the adjective of music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact def ...

Oklahoma! ''Oklahoma!'' is the first musical written by the duo of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, ''Green Grow the Lilacs''. Set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, it tells ...

''.

Early life

Riggs was born on a farm near Claremore, Oklahoma, (then

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

). His mother was 1/8Marilyn McClain
''"Oklahoma!" Celebrates Lynn Riggs' 100th Birthday''
Rogers County Historical Society.

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...

, and when he was two years old, his mother secured his Cherokee

allotment Allotment may refer to: * Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887 * Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed s ...

for him. He was able to draw on his allotment to help support his writing.''Lynn Riggs: An Oklahoma Treasure''

He was educated at the

Eastern University Preparatory School Rogers State University (RSU) is a public university in Claremore, Oklahoma. It also has branch campuses in Bartlesville and Pryor Creek. History The institution that is now RSU has gone through several stages, from its foundation as a state ...

in Claremore, Oklahoma, starting in 1912. Riggs graduated from high school in 1917, and travelled to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He worked for the Adams Express Company in Chicago, wrote for the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', sold books at

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

and swept out

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...

offices. Returning to Oklahoma in 1919, he wrote for the ''Oil and Gas Journal''. Travelling to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

, Riggs worked as an extra in the theatre, and a

copyeditor Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material ( copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. '' The Chicago Manual ...

at the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', which published his first poem. Riggs entered the

University of Oklahoma , mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State" , type = Public research university , established = , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.7billion (2021) , pr ...

in 1920, and taught English there from 1922–1923.''Lynn Riggs''
, Mary Hays Marable and Elaine Boylan, pages 93–96 of ''A Handbook of Oklahoma Writers'',

University of Oklahoma Press The University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press) is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. Founded in 1929 by the fifth president of the University of Oklahoma, William Bennett Bizzell, it was the first university press to be established ...

Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,097 as of 2021. It is the largest city and the county seat of Cleveland County, Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and the second-largest city in the Oklahoma C ...

, 1939, ASIN B0006AONUW . However, Riggs became ill with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

during his senior year and did not graduate. Riggs then moved to

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label= Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. The name “S ...

, to improve his health and soon joined a group of artists. However, in 1926 he moved back to New York, hoping to work in the Broadway theatres.

Literary career

Riggs wrote 21 full-length plays, several short stories, poems, and a television script. His first major production was a one-act play, ''Knives from Syria'', which was produced by the Santa Fe Players in 1925. He began teaching at the

Lewis Institute Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

, Chicago, while continuing to write. In 1928 he received a

John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

and travelled to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

. Riggs began writing his most famous play, '' Green Grow the Lilacs'' in the Café Les Deux Magots on the

Left Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography, as follows. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrai ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

. He completed this play five months later in

Cagnes-sur-Mer Cagnes-sur-Mer (, literally ''Cagnes on Sea''; oc, Canha de Mar) is a French Riviera town in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. Geography Cagnes-sur-Mer is a town in south-eastern ...

, in Southern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. He then lived in Santa Fe, Los Angeles, and New York, and was a screenwriter for Paramount and Universal Studios. Riggs was homosexual and was often a non-romantic escort for Hollywood actresses including

Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...

and

Joan Crawford Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion pic ...

. After serving in the military 1942–1944 he worked on an historical drama for

Western Reserve University Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US * Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia * Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that ...

, published a short story, "Eben, The Hound, and the Hare" (1952), and worked on a novel, ''The Affair at Easter'', set in Oklahoma. He moved to

Shelter Island, New York Shelter Island is an island town in Suffolk County, New York, United States, near the eastern end of Long Island. The population was 3,253 at the 2020 census. Geography Shelter Island is nestled between the North and South Forks of Long Islan ...

after he started receiving a steady income when ''Green Grow The Lilacs'' was adapted into the landmark

'' in 1943. Riggs was inducted into the

Oklahoma Hall of Fame The Oklahoma Hall of Fame was founded in 1927 by Anna B. Korn to officially celebrate Statehood Day, recognize Oklahomans dedicated to their communities, and provide educational programming for all ages. The first Oklahoma Hall of Fame Induction Cer ...

in 1943, and in 1965 he was inducted into the

Hall of Great Westerners The Hall of Great Westerners was established by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1958. Located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., the Hall was created to celebrate the contributions of more than 200 men and women of the American W ...

of the

National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of Ame ...

Death and legacy

Riggs died on June 30, 1954, of

stomach cancer Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is a cancer that develops from the Gastric mucosa, lining of the stomach. Most cases of stomach cancers are gastric carcinomas, which can be divided into a number of subtypes, including gastric adenoca ...

in New York City. Claremore, Oklahoma is home to the Lynn Riggs Memorial. ''The Lynn Riggs Memorial''
webpage His home in Santa Fe, at 770 Acequia Madre Road, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

as a contributing building in the Camino del Monte Sol Historic District. With

Plays

Selected plays include: :''Knives from Syria'' (premiered 1925, published 1927) :''Big Lake'' (premiered 1927, published 1927) :''Sump'n Like Wings'' (premiered 1931, published 1928) :''A Lantern to See By'' (premiered 1925, published 1928) :''Rancor'' (premiered 1928) :''Roadside'' (premiered 1930, published 1930) :'' Green Grow the Lilacs'' (premiered 1931, published 1931) :''The Cherokee Night'' (premiered 1932, published 1936) :''More Sky'' (1934) :''Russet Mantle'' (1936) :''A Year of Pilar'' (1938) :''A World Elsewhere'' (1939) :''

The Cream in the Well ''The Cream in the Well'' is a full-length tragedy play written by Lynn Riggs. Completed in 1940 and copyrighted the same year after opening in Washington D.C., it had a twenty-four week run on Broadway theatre, Broadway at Booth Theatre, The Booth ...

'' (1940) :''Dark Encounter'' (1944) :''Toward the Western Sky'' (premiered 1951) His first play was ''Cuckoo'' in 1920, a farce about college fraternities that was performed at the University of Oklahoma in the spring of 1921. The

Theatre Guild The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of th ...

produced his best-known play, '' Green Grow The Lilacs'', on Broadway in 1931, where it ran for 64 performances. The musical ''

'', based on Riggs' play, opened on Broadway on March 31, 1943, and ran until May 29, 1948 for 2,212 performances.

Filmography

* ''The Siren Song'' (1930) * ''Beyond Victory'' (1931, uncredited) * ''Laughing Boy'' (1934, uncredited) * ''

Stingaree The Stingaree was a neighborhood of San Diego between the boom of the 1880s and the demolition and vice eradication campaign of 1916. The reason for the neighborhood's fame was its role as the home to the city's "undesirables", including prostitut ...

'' (1934) * ''Family Man'' (1934) * ''Andrew's Harvest (''1934) * ''A Wicked Woman'' (1934, uncredited) * '' The Garden of Allah'' (1936) * '' The Plainsman'' (1936) * '' Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror'' (1942) * ''Destination Unknown'' (1942) * '' Madame Spy'' (1942) * '' Sherlock Holmes in Washington'' (1943)

References

Sources

Oklahoma Department of Libraries

External links

Lynn Riggs Papers
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Lynn Riggs Papers
Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa.
Riggs bio on R&H Theatricals site

Lynn Riggs Memorial Website
*
Photo of Lynn Riggs
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Riggs, Lynn 1899 births 1954 deaths People from Claremore, Oklahoma Cherokee Nation artists 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Native American dramatists and playwrights Deaths from stomach cancer University of Oklahoma alumni University of Oklahoma faculty The Wall Street Journal people LGBT people from Oklahoma LGBT dramatists and playwrights American gay writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers 20th-century Native Americans 20th-century LGBT people