Actors - Lee Strasberg

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	Actors - Lee Strasberg

Lee Strasberg (November 17, 1901–February 17, 1982) was a Jewish American director, actor, producer, and acting teacher. He was born Israel Lee Strassberg in Budzanów, former Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Budanov, Ukraine), to Ida and Baruch Meyer.

In 1931, Lee Strasberg became one of the co-founders of the Group Theatre, a company which included such legends as Elia Kazan, John Garfield, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Franchot Tone, and Robert Lewis. In 1936, Strasberg became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1949, he began a lengthy career at the Actors Studio in New York City. Within two years, he was artistic director and the now-renowned institution's reputation flourished. Actors under his tutelage there included Geraldine Page, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Kim Stanley, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, James Dean, Dustin Hoffman, Eli Wallach, Eva Marie Saint, Robert DeNiro, Jill Clayburgh, Jack Nicholson, Ellen Burstyn and Steve McQueen.

In 1966, he took the Actors Studio west and founded a Los Angeles branch. In 1969, he began the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in the same city.

While rarely stepping in front of the camera himself (he appeared in just seven films), his most famous role was surely that of Hyman Roth in The Godfather: Part II. Playing an elderly Jewish organized crime figure retired to Miami and overlord of criminal enterprise in Cuba, he encounters the wrath of Michael Corleone, played by Strasberg's former student Al Pacino. For this performance, Strasberg received an Academy Award nomination. His legacy remains strong today, as he was one of the patriarchs of "the method."

He was married to his second wife, the actress and drama coach Paula Strasberg from 1934 until her death from cancer in 1966. They were the parents of actress Susan Strasberg and acting teacher John Strasberg. Lee Strasberg's third wife was the former Anna Mizrahi, a Sephardic Jew who was born in Venezuela and the mother of his two youngest children, David and Adam.

Lee Strasberg died of a heart attack in New York City at the age of 80; his eldest children and only grandchild were disinherited in the will. Strasberg is interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, New York.

Work on Broadway

Note: All works are plays and the original productions unless otherwise noted.

Four Walls (1927) - Actor
The Vegetable (1929) - Director
Red Rust (1929) - Actor
Green Grow the Lilacs (1931) - Actor
The House of Connelly (1931) - Co-Director
1931 (1931) - Director
Success Story (1932) - Director
Men in White (1933) - Director
Gentlewoman (1934) - Director
Gold Eagle Guy (1934) - Director
Paradise Lost (1935) - Produced by Group Theatre
Case of Clyde Griffiths (1936) - Director, Produced by Group Theatre
Johnny Johnson (1936) - Director, Produced by Group Theatre
Many Mansions (1937) - Director
Golden Boy
(1937) - Produced by Group Theatre
Roosty (1938) - Director
Casey Jones (1938) - Produced by Group Theatre
All the Living (1938) - Director
Dance Night (1938) - Director
Rocket to the Moon (1938) - Produced by Group Theatre
The Gentle People (1939) - Produced by Group Theatre
Awake and Sing! (1939), revival - Produced by Group Theatre
Summer Night (1939) - Director
Night Music (1940) - Produced by Group Theatre
The Fifth Column (1940) - Director
Clash by Night
(1941) - Director
A Kiss for Cinderella (1942), revival - Director
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (1942), revival - Director
Apology (1943) - Producer and Director
South Pacific (1943, apparently no relation to the Broadway musical South Pacific
) - Director
Skipper Next to God (1948) - Director
The Big Knife (1949) - Director
The Closing Door (1949) - Director
The Country Girl (1950) - Co-Producer
Peer Gynt (1951), (revival) - Director
Strange Interlude (1963), (revival) - Produced by The Actors Studio - Tony Award Co-nomination for Best Producer of a Play
Marathon '33 (1963) - Production supervisor
The Three Sisters (1964), (revival) - Director, Produced by The Actors Studio

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