LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Playwright William Gibson, whose "The Miracle Worker" won awards and thrilled audiences with its hopeful tale of the teaching of deaf and blind Helen Keller, died at age 94 this week in Massachusetts.
Gibson died on Tuesday, a representative of the Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home in Great Barrington said on Friday. The cause of death was not disclosed.
"The Miracle Worker" first appeared on television in 1957 before Gibson adapted it into a play that debuted on Broadway in 1959 with Anne Bancroft portraying Anne Sullivan, who taught Keller how to communicate. Patty Duke played Keller.
The play won three Tony awards, Broadway's highest honor, for best play, best actress for Bancroft and best director for Arthur Penn. A 1962 film adaptation, again with Penn directing, won Oscars for Bancroft as best actress and Duke as supporting actress, while Penn and Gibson were both nominated.
While "Miracle Worker" was Gibson's best-known play, he wrote many others including 1958's "Two for the Seesaw" which was nominated for a best play Tony and made into a movie.
Gibson earned another Tony nomination for the musical "Golden Boy" starring Sammy Davis, Jr.
The New York native's 1977 play "Golda," about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, hit a sour note with critics, but a revised version -- "Golda's Balcony" -- became popular in 2003.
Gibson also wrote short stories, poems and novels such as 1954's "The Cobweb" and he published a memoir, "A Mass for the Dead," in 1968.
His wife Margaret Brenman-Gibson, a noted psychologist, teacher, writer and social activist, died in 2004.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
William Gibson (1964)
American playwright William Gibson has died at the age of 94 in Massachusetts, according to reports. The cause of death was not publicly disclosed, but BBC News says he died in his home.

Gibson is likely most famous for the play he wrote in 1957 entitled ''The Miracle Worker'', which was based on the autobiography of the blind and deaf woman, Helen Keller called ''The Story of My Life''. The play, originally written for television, went on Broadway in 1960, where it later won three Tony Awards. It went on to become a movie in 1962 where it also won several Oscars.

Gibson wrote 12 plays throughout his career, including ''Golden Boy'', ''Golda Balcony'' in 2003, which was about former Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir. It was his last play before his death.

"The act of writing makes everything possible to me. I've always found the business of writing has helped me to live," said Gibson in an interview with the Associated Press in 2003.