August 14, 1983

Drugs Linked to Death of Tennessee Williams

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ew York City's Chief Medical Examiner said yesterday that the playwright Tennessee Williams was apparently trying to ingest barbiturates when he choked to death on a plastic bottle cap last February.

The Medical Examiner, Dr. Elliot M. Gross, said that chemical tests of tissue samples taken from the 71-year-old playwright's body disclosed the presence of the barbiturate secobarbital in his system when he died.

''The cause of death was asphyxia,'' said Dr. Gross. ''But apparently the overcap was being used to take the barbiturates.''

Mr. Williams's body was discovered in his two-room suite at the Hotel Elysee at 60 East 54th Street last Feb. 25, by his secretary, John Uecker. An autopsy performed the next day showed that the writer had choked to death on a bottle cap - of the type used on nasal spray or eye solution - that he had swallowed or inhaled. The chemical tests were taken later.

Dr. Gross said the recent amendment to the autopsy report concluded his offfice's inquiry into the causes of Mr. Williams's death.

Mr. Williams, who won Pulitzer Prizes for his plays ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' in 1947, and ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,'' in 1954, struggled with depression and a variety of illnesses, some of which were caused by his increasing reliance on alcohol and drugs.