Person
Elia Kazan
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…
IMDbKnown for
Popular titles
Photos
More stills of Elia Kazan
Biography
A closer look
Read full biography
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.
Filmography
Movies and shows, newest first
- 2019
-
2019
An American Named Kazan
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2017
Arthur Miller: Writer
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2014
Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire
Movie Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
-
2014
Inside Rupert Pupkin
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2010
A Letter to Elia
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2006
A Streetcar in Hollywood
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2006
An Actor Named Brando
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2006
A Man Named Brando
Movie Self
-
2006
A Streetcar on Broadway
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2005
East of Eden: Art in Search of Life
Movie Himself
-
2003
Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and the Blacklist: None Without Sin
Movie Self (Archive footage)
-
2001
Backstory: 'Gentleman's Agreement'
Movie Self (archive footage)
-
2001
Diaspora
Movie Writer
-
1998
Life at Any Cost
Movie
-
1995
Elia Kazan: A Director's Journey
Movie Self
More credits
-
1994
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
Movie Self (archive footage)
- 1990
-
1988
Hello Actors Studio
Movie Self
-
1988
Mist
Movie Old man in the coffee house
-
1985
Empire City
Movie Self
-
1982
Elia Kazan: An Outsider
Movie Self
- 1982
-
1980
I Am Wanda
Movie Self
-
1978
The Kennedy Center Honors
TV show Self
-
1976
The Last Tycoon
Movie Director
-
1975
Apostrophes
TV show Self
-
1974
Spécial cinéma
TV show Self
-
1972
The Visitors
Movie Director
-
1969
The Arrangement
Movie Writer
-
1969
A New Lifestyle
Movie Self
-
1968
The Dick Cavett Show
TV show Self - Guest
-
1964
Die Drehscheibe
TV show Self
-
1963
America America
Movie Producer
-
1962
The Merv Griffin Show
TV show Self
-
1961
The Mike Douglas Show
TV show Self
-
1961
Splendor in the Grass
Movie Director
-
1960
Wild River
Movie Director
-
1957
A Face in the Crowd
Movie Director
-
1956
Baby Doll
Movie Director
