- Born
- Died
- Place
Elia Kazan
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.
As director
The Last Tycoon
The Visitors
The Arrangement
America America
Splendor in the Grass
Wild River
A Face in the Crowd
Baby Doll
East of Eden
On the Waterfront
Man on a Tightrope
Viva Zapata!
A Streetcar Named Desire
Panic in the Streets
Pinky
Gentleman's Agreement
Boomerang!
The Sea of Grass
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
As actor
An American Named Kazan
The Making of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Arthur Miller: Writer
Inside Rupert Pupkin
Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire
A Letter to Elia
An Actor Named Brando
A Man Named Brando
A Streetcar in Hollywood
A Streetcar on Broadway
East of Eden: Art in Search of Life
Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist: None Without Sin
Backstory: 'Gentleman's Agreement'
Life at Any Cost
Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
Sanford Meisner: The American Theatre's Best Kept Secret
Hello Actors Studio
Mist
Empire City
Elia Kazan: An Outsider
Natalie - A Tribute to a Very Special Lady
I Am Wanda
A New Lifestyle
The Screen Director
Panic in the Streets
Blues in the Night
City for Conquest
Strangers All
Pie in the Sky