Biography

Williams graduated from Somerset Academy ME before attending Wheaton College. After earning her A.B. from Wheaton in 1925, she pursued graduate work at Yale University’s School of Fine Arts for one year.

Williams developed a career as a radio script, advertising, and freelance writer. Her work includes articles and feature stories in the Boston Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, New York Sun and Skowhegan ME Independent Reporter. Williams wrote and produced pageants in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts between 1925 and 1928. Among these works were “an Historical Pageant of the Wesserunsett Valley” written in 1925, Moon in the Pond, and one act plays for colleges and schools.

Williams began her advertising career with The Blackman Company, where she worked from 1930 to 1932. At first writing advertising copy for magazines and newspapers, an ad campaign for Ivory Snow led to a portfolio including Ivory Soap, Chipso, and Packer’s Tar Soap, Camay, Crisco, Lava Soap, and Mobil Oil. While at The Blackman Company, Williams also wrote scripts and commercials, provided editorial assistance, directed rehearsals, and supervised broadcasts, as well as acting herself. Among her dramatic scripts was Criminal Parrallels, produced in 1932. Williams moved to the advertising agency Young and Rubican in 1932, staying until 1933. There she wrote, directed, and produced the half hour dramatic program Pages of Romance. Between 1938 and 1942, Williams worked for another advertising agency, Town Hall, Inc., as a press representative and publicity director. After leaving Town Hall, Inc., Williams spent four months on a publicity job for the Harmon Foundation, which managed the dancer La Meri.

As a free lance writer, Williams wrote the programs Aunt Jenny’s Real Life Stories, Molly of the Movies, The Couple Next Door, Death Valley Days, and Criminal Parallels. The only published book known to have been written and illustrated by Williams was a children’s book entitled And a Good Fat Hen (1939).

In the theatre, Williams both acted and directed. While still a student at Wheaton College, she participated in two summer stock programs at Lakewood, ME. After college, she played the lead in Dead Man’s Holiday, and had parts in The Big Fight (1929), General John Regan, and productions of the Theater Assembly in New York City. During the summer she participated in productions at the Westport Playhouse (CT and the Westchester Playhouse (Mt. Crisco). At the Little Theater (Portsmouth, NH) she was the assistant director. In radio, she had roles on NBC and CBS.

Eleanor Troy Williams died in 1950 after a battle with cancer. No services were held, and her ashes were taken to Casco Bay.

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