Lee Strasberg

• Born: November 17, 1901
• Birthplace: Budzanów, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Budaniv, Ukraine)
• Died: February 17, 1982
• Place of death: New York, New York

Ukrainian-born actor, director, and acting coach

Strasberg added his insights to the acting system created by Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky to develop the distinctively American method acting. He cofounded the Group Theatre, served as artistic director of the Actors Studio, and founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

Areas of achievement: Entertainment; theater

Early Life

Lee Strasberg (STRAHS-burg) was born in 1901, the youngest son of Jewish parents Ida and Baruch Meyer Strassberg. His father brought the family to the United States in 1909 to live in the lower East Side of New York. In his early years, Lee Strasberg loved to read books, a passion that would last his lifetime. One subject he enjoyed reading about was theater and other areas of the arts. His interest in theater developed slowly over time, starting with his being cast as an adolescent in a Yiddish play performed by the Progressive Dramatic Club. In 1915, the famous actor Jacob Ben-Ami came to direct several one-act plays in Yiddish at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Because Strasberg spoke Yiddish and had some acting experience, he was invited to join the cast. Later, he acted at his school that taught subjects about Jewish culture, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Often school plays centered on historical festivals, such as Hanukkah.

By his early twenties, Strasberg had developed a taste for acting. He joined an amateur group called the Students of Art and Drama and participated in several productions. After reading On the Art of the Theatre by Edward Gordon Craig, Strasberg became aware of the possibilities of theater as art, not just entertainment. In 1923, he saw actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre, which convinced Strasberg that theater could be a creative form of art. He sold his part of a business that made women’s hairpieces and dedicated his time and energy to theater. That same year he auditioned and was accepted into the American Laboratory Theatre. The founders, Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya, taught the Stanislavsky system of acting, which made a life-changing impact on Strasberg. He adopted Stanislavsky’s techniques, which emphasized the psychological side of the actor’s performance, and Strasberg tested the theory with his own acting.

Life’s Work

In 1924, Strasberg began working with the Theatre Guild, a group established in New York City in 1918, and he contributed as an actor and a stage manager. In 1931, he joined Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford to found the Group Theatre, which aimed to develop actors, directors, and playwrights. Strasberg assumed responsibility for actor training. The Group Theatre represented the dream of the founders to transform theater so that it would reflect the times rather than simply entertain. Using an ensemble of twenty-eight actors, Strasberg developed his idea of method acting through both psychological and physical exercises. He recognized that actors required more than inspiration to perform consistently at optimal level. He believed some other factor must be present to motivate the actor to repeated quality performance; the actor needed an inner technique or inner emotional experience that Strasberg defined as emotional memory. Though the Group Theatre had an undeniable impact on the history of American theater, it dissolved in 1941 because of financial issues.

In 1949, Strasberg began teaching at the Actors Studio, which had been founded in 1947 by members of the Group Theatre: Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis. In 1951, Strasberg was named artistic director of the Actors Studio. Actors auditioned for the studio committee and, if selected, they would audition for Strasberg, who would give final approval to join. At the studio, Strasberg refined his techniques, using such tools as relaxation, sense memory, concentration, affective memory, transformation, and improvisation. Many famous and successful actors trained at the Actors Studio, eager to participate in Strasberg’s transformative goals for American theater and in his method techniques. In 1969, Strasberg launched a new project that would allow anyone who wanted to train as an actor or a director to do so without approval and admission into the Actors Studio. The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute was founded to educate actors in the method approach.

In 1974, at age seventy-three, Strasberg became an actor again, playing Hyman Roth in the film Godfather: Part Two, alongside his students Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Strasberg received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for this role, but he lost to De Niro, who played Vito Corleone. Strasberg continued as artistic director at the Actors Studio until his death from a heart attack in 1982.

Significance

Strasberg dedicated his life to the study of theater as a creative art. Taking the best from his mentors and adding his own techniques, he developed the American method acting system, one of the most important developments in the history of American theater. The impact of his teaching can be seen in the successful actors who studied with him at the Actors Studio. They include Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, James Dean, De Niro, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Cloris Leachman, Jack Lord, Walter Matthau, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Pacino, Geraldine Page, Anthony Perkins, Sidney Poitier, Dennis Weaver, Joanne Woodward, Gene Wilder, and Shelley Winters. His legacy continues as actors still come to the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute to learn the craft from those who teach in the manner of the creator of method acting.

Bibliography

Brestoff, Richard. The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods. Lyme, N.H.: Smith and Kraus, 1995. Offers the history of theater, profiles of actor training schools, and insight into great acting teachers such as Strasberg.

Calhoun, Ada. “Still Mad at the Method and Its Gurus.” The New York Times, October 3, 2004. Compares actors in an Arthur Miller play to Strasberg and his wife Paula, with insights into their lives and work.

Hull, S. Loraine. Strasberg’s Method: As Taught by Lorrie Hull. Woodbridge, Conn.: Ox Box, 1985. Details method acting training taught under the supervision of Strasberg at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

McNulty, Charles. “Domestic Drama: Lee Strasberg’s Family Continues the Legacy, Despite Some Friction.” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2009. Describes his family’s attempt to continue the work of Strasberg while disagreeing on aspects of his teaching. In the end, results achieved by Strasberg speak for themselves.

Strasberg, Lee. A Dream of Passion. Edited by Evangeline Morphos. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987. Autobiography explains Strasberg’s life search, or “voyage,” for a better system to teach actors. He outlines his many stops along the way to defining American method acting.

Strasberg, Lee, and Robert H. Hethmon. Strasberg at the Actors Studio: Tape-Recorded Sessions. New York: Viking Press, 1965. Includes transcripts of recordings of Strasberg coaching about 150 actors as early as 1956 at the Actors Studio. Strasberg’s spoken words are indicated in a different font.