Elia Kazan

Directing Sep 7, 1909 Sep 28, 2003 (aged 94) 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.

39 Acting Credits

22 Crew Credits

Elia Kazan

Acting

Panic in the Streets

The Oscars

City for Conquest

Blues in the Night

A Letter to Elia

The Dick Cavett Show

Arthur Miller: Writer

Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire

Pie in the Sky

The Merv Griffin Show

Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey

The Mike Douglas Show

The Kennedy Center Honors

Elia Kazan: An Outsider

Mist

Apostrophes

Hello Actors Studio

An American Named Kazan

Life at Any Cost

Cinépanorama

Die Drehscheibe

Strangers All

The Screen Director

A Streetcar in Hollywood

Crew

On the Waterfront

A Streetcar Named Desire

East of Eden

Splendor in the Grass

Gentleman's Agreement

A Face in the Crowd

Viva Zapata!

Panic in the Streets

The Last Tycoon

Baby Doll

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Wild River