Adria Langley (1899-1983) grew up in Stanton, NE, where she became well known in the 1920s as an opponent of prohibition. The earliest years of the Great Depression found her in difficult circumstances, and she arrived in Louisiana in 1929 the divorced single mother of a baby girl. She used her experiences in Louisiana to write a sensational roman à clef based on the life of Huey Long, A Lion Is in the Streets. Published in 1945, the book was a best seller, and eventually she was paid $250,000 for the movie rights. James Cagney would star in the movie, which came out in 1953. In early interviews, she denied the book was based on Long's life, for fear of being sued. She wrote for magazines thereafter.
Discipline:
Literature
Adria Langley
Discipline:
Literature
MacDowell Fellowships: 1957, 1958
Studios
Monday Music
Adria Langley worked in the Monday Music studio.
Given to the residency by the Monday Music Club of Orange, NJ, Monday Music Studio is sited next to an enormous boulder deposited by glaciers thousands of years ago. A small dormer once pierced the east slope of the roof, but after damage suffered in the 1938 hurricane, the roof was rebuilt without the dormer. The interior…