The character of Stanley Kowalski is not completely fictional - after Williams dropped out of the University of Missouri, he went to work in a shoe factory, and one of his co-workers and friends was named Stanley Kowalski.

The issue of mental instability was not completely unfamiliar to Williams, either. His sister, Rose, had a history of mental problems, beginning with a frontal lobotomy that she had undergone at the age of 16.

To complete a life that was filled with confusion, isolation, and depression, Williams died in 1983 when he mistook the cap of a pill bottle for a pill and ended up choking on the bottletop.