November 9, 1953: Dylan Thomas Dies

November 9, 1953: Dylan Thomas dies at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. He was only 39 years old.

Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on October 27, 1904 in Swansea, Wales. (That was the day the New York Subway system opened.) A poet and playwright, he was called, in his time, "a roistering, drunken and doomed poet." He made radio recordings for the BBC during World War II, making him world-famous. But, as with other noted alcoholics (and abusers of other substances), he proved unreliable.

He came to New York in the early 1950s, lived at the Chelsea Hotel, and drank at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. In those last years, he wrote the short story A Child's Christmas in Wales, the play Under Milk Wood, and an untitled poem, published in 1952, that begins and ends with the words, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

When that poem appeared in Collected Poems, 1934-1952, British critic Philip Toynbee said, "Thomas is the greatest living poet in the English language."

Apparently, Thomas didn't take his own advice. Nor did he stay the greatest living English-language poet for long, and not because any other poet surpassed him. By October 24, 1953, after appearing in a New York performance of Under Milk Wood, he told a friend, "The circus out there has taken the life out of me for now." He turned 39 on October 27, but left the party thrown for him after just 1 hour, and headed back to the Chelsea.

New York was hit with a smog attack on November 2. By the end of the month, over 200 people had died. Whatever was wrong with Thomas' lungs, the smog made it worse. On November 3, he walked into the lobby of the Chelsea, after a night at the White Horse, saying, "I've had 18 straight whiskeys. I think that's the record." Interviewed some time after, the bartender said it might have been half as many, which would still be a dangerous amount.

His breathing got worse, and late at night on November 5, he was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he died on November 9, leaving behind a wife, 2 sons and a daughter.

He has a sports connection, though he would never know it. In 1972, sportswriter Roger Kahn, who had been a student of the classics at New York University, titled his memoir of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the early 1950s after a Thomas poem: 

I see the boys of summer in their ruin Lay the gold tithings barren, Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils; There in their heat the winter floods Of frozen loves they fetch their girls, And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

This poem would also lend itself to "The Boys of Summer," a hit song by Don Henley in 1985. 

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November 9, 1953 was a Monday. Comedian Dennis Miller and actress Kate Capshaw were born.

Baseball was out of season, the NFL didn't have Monday Night Football back then; and while both the NBA and the NHL had started their seasons, neither scheduled any games for that day. So there were no scores on this historic day.