1909-09-07 ( 115 years old ) in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]
Elia Kazan ( September 7 , 1909, Kayseri – September 28, 2003) was a Greek-American director and actor, described as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". He also produced, and wrote screenplays and novels. Born in the Kayseri, Ottoman Empire to Greek parents, they emigrated to New York when he was four. After two years studying acting at Yale, he acted professionally for eight years before becoming a stage and film director. Kazan co-founded the influential Group Theater in 1932 and Actors Studio in 1947, and together with Lee Strasberg, introduced Method acting to the American stage and cinema as a new form of self-expression and psychological "realism". Having been an actor himself for eight years, he brought sensitivity and understanding of the acting process, and was later considered the ideal "actor's director". He himself acted in only a few films, including City for Conquest (1940), alongside James Cagney.
Overall, Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 1960s by his run of provocative, issues-driven subjects, and acting. Moreover, his personal brand of cinema, employing real locations over sets, unknowns over stars, and realism over convenient genres, proved influential to a whole generation of independent filmmakers in the 1960s. Film author Ian Freer concludes that "If his achievements are tainted by political controversy, the debt Hollywood — and actors everywhere — owes him, is enormous." In 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film, A Letter to Elia, as a personal tribute to Kazan, who he credits as the inspiration for his becoming a filmmaker.
Movies
Faye
2024-05-15
An American Named Kazan
2019-03-10
Arthur Miller: Writer
2017-12-08
Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire
2014-09-20
Inside Rupert Pupkin
2014-05-14
A Letter to Elia
2010-09-04
An Actor Named Brando
2006-05-02
A Man Named Brando
2006-05-02
A Streetcar in Hollywood
2006-01-01
A Streetcar on Broadway
2006-01-01
East of Eden: Art in Search of Life
2005-05-31
Backstory: 'Gentleman's Agreement'
2001-10-21
Life at Any Cost
1998-08-20
Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey
1995-08-14
Hello Actors Studio
1988-11-09
Mist
1988-03-18
Empire City
1985-07-01
Elia Kazan: An Outsider
1982-09-15
I Am Wanda
1980-12-01
A New Lifestyle
1969-04-04
The Screen Director
1951-03-12
Panic in the Streets
1950-07-27
Blues in the Night
1941-11-15
City for Conquest
1940-09-21
Pie in the Sky
1935-04-09
Strangers All
1935-04-01
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