born Nov. 27, 1909, Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.
died May 16, 1955, New York, N.Y.
U.S. poet and novelist.
Agee attended Harvard University. In the 1930s and '40s, film reviews for Time and The Nation made him a pioneer in serious film criticism. His lyrical Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), with photographs by Walker Evans , documents the daily lives of poverty-stricken Alabama sharecroppers. After 1948 Agee worked mainly as a screenwriter, notably on The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). He is best known for his autobiographical novel A Death in the Family (1957, Pulitzer Prize).