Why Me? Or Who Am I To Write This!?!

Even in college (Franklin and Marshall, but more on that another time) I knew that I wanted to study acting in a professional and meaningful way. Thankfully, this was before the advent of quick fix “workshops”. I read everything I could about all the great, available teachers: Stella Adler, Sandy Meisner, Bobby Lewis, and Lee Strasberg. One thing really stood out for me and that was that the first three on my list had all studied with Lee Strasberg. What was good for them was certainly good for me.

I joined the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in 1970; one year after it came into being. At the time of my interview I was told that the only way into Mr. Strasberg’s classes was to either already be established in a career, or to be recommended by one of his teachers with whom I had already been studying. I started studying with Mitch Nestor, who at that time was also the Director of his New York school.

Although it was a decent introduction, it very quickly became apparent to me that what I was getting in the classroom was different than what I had read about in every article and book available to me. Most notably were the two books Strasberg At The Actors Studio edited by Robert H. Hethmon, and Edward Dwight Easty’s On Method Acting. Even that early, Lee’s work was being very liberally interpreted by his instructors. At a much later date he told me that he was not opposed to this. He felt that there might be growth from these departures, and that he would be there if things went too far astray.

After missing one of Mitch’s classes, I made it up with another teacher: Ed Kovens. It was as if a light went on. More than that; it was as if a very bright spotlight was shining on the craft of acting. Ed was a remarkable teacher. He not only conveyed Lee Strasberg’s work, he also was completely unselfish in his sharing of insights and advice. It was Ed who practically forced me to leave his class and move on to Lee’s class in 1971. I continued studying with Lee Strasberg until his death in 1982; a period of 11 years.

It was shortly after I moved into Lee’s class that his wife Anna announced that she would be directing that year’s Christmas show at The Actors Studio. A Studio member and stalwart, Fred Stewart, had recreated an old English mummer’s play, The Masque of St. George and The Dragon,some years earlier and that play was performed at various hospitals and nursing homes in New York every year. Anna was carrying on the tradition. I auditioned for it and got the part of “King Alfred of blessed memory”. It was during this time that I started to become close with the Strasberg family, probably due to all of the late night rehearsals; many of which were at their apartment on Central Park West.

The following year, 1972, ten years after her death, Marilyn Monroe’s estate finally came out of probate naming Lee Strasberg as her main beneficiary. Several truckloads of Marilyn’s possessions were delivered to his address where he had rented an additional apartment in which to store them. It was overwhelming! By that time I had become a steady part of the Strasberg family, and Lee and Anna asked me to sort through and catalogue all of Marilyn’s things. This delving into the intimacies of Marilyn Monroe’s life intensified and cemented my relationship with Lee and his family. I was given my own set of keys to their apartment and came and went as I pleased.

Lee used to spend six months of every year teaching at his LA school. I was at a point in my studies with him in which I was making good progress and I didn’t want to take a summer break and wait for him to return to NY in September. Along with an actor from Argentina who was studying at the Institute, I drove Lee’s car to LA. We made a stop in Hutchinson, KS and picked up Delos Smith, an actor and Actors Studio member best remembered for his work in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, both on stage and screen. All three of us moved in to the Strasberg’s rented home at 605 South Irving Boulevard. My studies with Lee picked up  the very next morning and continued, more or less uninterrupted, until Lee’s death in February, 1982.

In 1976 I became one of only a handful of people that  Lee Strasberg asked to teach for him. Of those few, I am the only one who asked Lee to tutor me in teaching. I felt that knowing his work as an actor, and knowing how to teach it were two entirely different perspectives. Perhaps because of our closeness, and also  due to his increasing awareness that he would not always be there “if things went too far astray”, he agreed.

I went on to teach at The Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute (now known as the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute) in New York. In the late ’70s I became that schools’s director and administrator, and in the late 80’s I was appointed the Producing Director of The Lee Strasberg Creative Center. Since my departure from that school in 1991 I have been teaching at my own school, The Acting Class, as well as for The Actor Studio Drama School when it was part of The New School University. I am also on the faculty of The Acting Conservatory at SUNY Purchase College.