Jack DeWayne Clay is an American acting teacher, director and actor.

A graduate of the Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 school of speech under Alvina Krause, Clay taught at Oberlin College

Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...

 (1956 - 1957), the University of Miami

University of Miami

The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

 (1957 - 1961), and the University of South Florida

University of South Florida

The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...

 (1961 - 1966). He also headed the Professional Actors Training Programs at Southern Methodist University

Southern Methodist University

Southern Methodist University is a private university in Dallas, Texas, United States. Founded in 1911 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, SMU operates campuses in Dallas, Plano, and Taos, New Mexico. SMU is owned by the South Central Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church...

 (1966 - 1986) and the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

 (1986 - 1991.) While in Dallas, He founded "Stage #1," a professional acting company, and served as its artistic director for eight years.

Clay's teachers included Lee Strasberg

Lee Strasberg

Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...

, Martha Graham

Martha Graham

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...

 and Eric Hawkins. Among his best known students are Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates

Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...

, Powers Boothe

Powers Boothe

Powers Allen Boothe is an American television and film actor. Some of his most notable roles include his Emmy-winning 1980 portrayal of Jim Jones and his turn as Cy Tolliver on Deadwood, as well as Vice-President Noah Daniels on 24....

, Patricia Richardson

Patricia Richardson

Patricia Castle Richardson is an American television and film actress best known for her portrayal of Jill Taylor on the sitcom Home Improvement.-Early life and education:...

, Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowsky

Stephen Harold Tobolowsky is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day, as well as portraying Commissioner Hugo Jarry in Deadwood for nine episodes and Bob Bishop in Heroes for eleven episodes over the second and third seasons...

, Beth Henley

Beth Henley

Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays...

 and Hugh O'Gorman (of Remember WENN

Remember WENN

Remember WENN is a comedy-drama television series that aired from 1996 to 1998 on the cable channel American Movie Classics. Created and written by Rupert Holmes and set at the fictional Pittsburgh radio station WENN in the early 1940s, it depicted events in the personal and professional lives of...

).

Clay is also a distinguished member of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre.