Clifford Odets was born on July 18, 1906 in Philadelphia to Romanian and Russian immigrants. The Odets moved to New York in 1912, where his father became a businessman. Clifford Odets had a melancholy family life growing up, which had an affect on his writing.

Clifford Odets’ mother spent years of constant care to her family of three children. Clifford Odets’ mother became withdrawn following the death of his sister Genevieve. In the biography "Clifford Odets, American Playwright," Clifford Odets acknowledged his mother’s shortcomings in providing for him. She was "chronically exhausted" by her situation at home, and sought to change her life, which never occured. She died in 1935. A character in Awake and Sing! reflects Clifford Odets’ mother’s yearn for an unfulfilled future.

Clifford Odets’ relationship with his father was worse. Lou Odets, Russian business "0powerman," ran his home with an iron fist. He constantly upheld his values as standard, against which Clifford Odets struggled. Despite success, his father’s harsh judgments manifested as villains in Clifford Odets’ plays like Golden Boy, Paradise Lost, Rocket to the Moon, and Awake and Sing! By the time Clifford Odets was in his mid-twenties, he attempted suicide thrice.

Clifford Odets acted in small theaters and groups after ending high school midway. Clifford Odets befriended Harold Clurman, one of the founders of The Group Theater. Clifford Odets joined after expressing much interest. Clurman encouraged Odets to write. The Group Theater contributed to guiding Clifford Odets from a mediocre actor into a renowned writer.

In 1935 Odets’ works were produced;

Waiting for Lefty debuted at the Civic Repertory Theatre. It received standing ovations and praise from the critics and audience. The play was written in only three days, and depicted the lives of four workers following the Depression. Waiting for Lefty circles a union corruption, and is notable for its display of crude power and anger. The play was such a success, that it commanded twenty-eight curtain calls and twenty minutes of the audience’s applause. The play became the backbone for the unionizing working class of the 1930s.

Clifford Odets was known for his famous play, Awake and Sing!, which he wrote at the age of twenty-eight. Awake and Sing! is a story about how a Bronx family adjusts to the imperfect capitalist economy, and how individuals’ lifestyles must accommodate to economic pressure. While artistically struggling in the 1930s and 1940s, Clifford Odets shared a room with Elia Kazan. It was in their apartment where Clifford Odets wrote the famous Awake and Sing!.

Paradise Lost deals with the change in a family’s value based on the shift of the economy. The work is symbolically more esteemed than its story.

Golden Boy is geared more for individuals, rather than social issues. It deals with the protagonist choosing a career in boxing over his natural talent in music. Although he becomes successful, it leads to his downfall. In 1964 it was made into a Broadway musical.

Till the Day I Die is about the struggle between Communists and Nazis.

A member of the American Communist Party, Clifford Odets’ works made him the underdog for the underprivileged.

Clifford Odets’ eventual rise as the underdog built strife between him and Lee Strasberg at The Group Theatre. Clifford Odets, along with others, now influenced The Group’s artistic management. Strasberg disregarded Waiting for Lefty and Awake and Sing!.

Clifford Odets faced more struggle within himself as fame and fortune wrestled with his earlier years as a struggling young man. He often wrote about this in his journals, trying to hold onto his moral years. Eventually Clifford Odets’ testimony at the publicized House Committee of Un-American Activities cost him his heroic underdog title with fans, from which he never recovered.

Clifford Odets was married to Luise Rainer, but later remarried to Betty Grayson, with whom he had two children. Clifford Odets died of colon cancer on August 14, 1963 in California, leaving behind his children Nora and Walter.