Tennessee Williams’ Sister Dies

Rose Williams, Tennessee Williams’ sister, who was the model for Laura Wingfield, the shy, lame young woman in “The Glass Menagerie,” died Thursday of cardiac arrest at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 86.

“The Glass Menagerie,” produced in 1945, was Tennessee Williams’ first Broadway success.

Rose Isabel Williams was born in Columbus, Miss., in 1919, two years before her brother, Thomas (later Tennessee). The two grew up together. As a young woman, Williams was schizophrenic, and she underwent a prefrontal lobotomy and was institutionalized for the rest of her life.