Robert Lewis
Encyclopedia
Robert Lewis was an American actor, director, teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio
in New York in 1947.
In addition to his accomplishments on Broadway and in Hollywood, Lewis' greatest and longest lasting contribution to American theater may be the role he played as one of the foremost acting and directing teachers of his day. He was an early proponent of the Stanislavski System
of acting technique and a founding member of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he was the Head of the Yale School of Drama
Acting and Directing Departments.
in 1909 to a middle class working family. Encouraged in the arts by his mother, a former contralto
, Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music, particularly opera. He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting. In 1929, he joined Eva Le Gallienne
's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City. His musical background proved invaluable later when he became a director of operas and filmed musicals in Hollywood.
, Lee Strasberg
and producer Cheryl Crawford
, The Group was an ensemble of passionate young actors, directors and writers who came together to explore the inner processes of theatre craft.
Lewis and other members of the Group, such as Stella Adler
and Elia Kazan
, were proponents of a new form of acting based on the techniques of Russian director, Constantin Stanislavski. They believed the Stanislavski System
, first taught in America in the 1920s by former members of the Moscow Art Theatre
, Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya
at the American Theatre Laboratory where Clurman and Strasberg had studied, resulted in a more truthful, more believable, and therefore more powerful stage performance than could be accomplished with more seemingly external techniques common at that time.
Lewis appeared in several original Group Theatre productions in the 1930s including Sidney Kingsley
's Pulitzer Prize
-winning Men in White
and Clifford Odets
' plays Waiting for Lefty
, Awake and Sing!
, Paradise Lost and Golden Boy.
Lewis summered at Pine Brook Country Club
in Nichols, Connecticut
. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York). Some of the other artists who summered there were; Elia Kazan
, Harry Morgan
, John Garfield
, Lee J. Cobb
, Will Geer
, Clifford Odets
, Howard Da Silva
and Irwin Shaw
.
As in any artistic endeavor, differences in translation and emphasis between the Russian Stanislavski System, and what eventually came to be known as The Method, were debated vigorously in the Group. In the summer of 1934, Stella Adler
returned from a trip to Paris where she had worked privately with Stanislavski and directly challenged Lee Strasberg's approach, deepening tensions which led to Strasberg's departure from the Group in 1937. In later years, Lewis held that Strasberg's Method, while valid in its particulars, was a misrepresentation of Stanislavski because it emphasized only some parts of Stanislavski's theory. (See Method — Or Madness?, below)
Despite the Group's success, internal disagreements, the lure of Hollywood and financial issues began to take a toll and, by late 1936, production was suspended. Officially released from Group obligations, many of the members, including Lewis and Group founder Harold Clurman, went off to join other Group members already in Hollywood.
In April 1937, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford resigned as directors of the Group. A year later, however, Robert Lewis and Elia Kazan returned to New York to restart Group workshops and The Group Theatre Studio resumed with fifty actors chosen from four hundred who auditioned. Lewis, Kazan and Sanford Meisner
were the principle teachers.
That same year, Harold Clurman returned from Hollywood to stage the Group's production of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy
, which became its most successful play. Robert Lewis was cast as Roxy Gottlieb, the prizefight promoter. Lewis later maintained that he had been miscast in the original production, though he assumed a more satisfying role as director of his own successful production of Golden Boy at the St. James Theatre in London, in 1938.
While in London, Lewis studied with Michael Chekov, an actor whose work he admired and whom Stanislavski considered one of the foremost interpreters of his theories. At Chekov's studio in Devonshire at Dartington Hall, Lewis further shaped his understanding of Stanislavski's techniques, or "method", as it was informally known in America.
The following year, Lewis made his Broadway directorial debut with a critically successful production of William Saroyan
's My Heart's in the Highlands (1939).
, Clifford Odets, Stella Adler
, Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman
, Lewis found the "need to sin" in Hollywood (as Odets called it) irresistible.
In his book Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life, Lewis complains that "being short and round", he reluctantly had to accept that, as an actor, he fell into the character, rather than the leading man category.
True enough, after moving to Los Angeles in 1940, he became known in Hollywood for his ability to transform himself into memorable screen characters, particularly characters of different nationalities. He played German officers, such as Colonel Pirosh in Paris After Dark (FOX, 1943), opposite George Sanders
, and Sergeant Schmidt in Son of Lassie (MGM, 1945), starring Peter Lawford
, Donald Crisp
and June Lockhart
. He became French collaborationist Maurice Bonnard in Tonight We Raid Calais (FOX, 1943), and the villainous Japanese Colonel Sato in Dragon Seed (MGM, 1944), starring Katharine Hepburn
. A highlight of his Hollywood character actor career came when he played Frenchman Maurice Bottello opposite his friend Charles Chaplin in Chaplin's controversial film Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
Though he went on to perform in and co-direct (with Vincente Minnelli
) musicals like Ziegfeld Follies (MGM, 1946), starring Fred Astaire
, and he directed the 1956 version of Anything Goes (Paramount), starring Bing Crosby
and Donald O'Connor
, Lewis was strictly tied to a contract with MGM studios. Lewis reminisced he felt bored, underused and flustered in Hollywood; and struggled for some years to get out of his contract at MGM so he could return to Broadway and the East coast.
Robert Lewis did return to New York in 1947 to direct his first big commercial success on Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner
and Frederick Loewe's whimsical musical play Brigadoon.
Even after becoming a successful director, Lewis apparently preferred Broadway to Hollywood: He turned down an offer to direct the film My Fair Lady, choosing instead to remain in New York to stage a play with Cheryl Crawford.
and producer Cheryl Crawford
. The Actors Studio was an attempt to recapture the close ensemble nature of the Group, and to evolve and refine the methods first explored by the Group in the 1930s.
The first year, about fifty young actors were invited to join. Lewis taught classes for advanced members with emphasis on inner action or intention, while Kazan, who preferred to work with the younger actors, held forth on technique exercises such as sensory recall, imagination and improvisation.
The Actors Studio, which is still active today, became one of the leading centers for the Stanislavski System, or Method, of dramatic training, producing some of the most influential performers in American theatre and film in the later half of the Twentieth Century.
In the first year alone, Robert Lewis' group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando
, Montgomery Clift
, Mildred Dunnock
, Jerome Robbins
, Herbert Berghof
, Tom Ewell
, John Forsythe
, Kevin McCarthy
, Karl Malden
, E. G. Marshall
, Patricia Neal
, Beatrice Straight
and David Wayne
, to name a few.
Lewis left The Actors Studio over differences with Kazan and Crawford involving the production of a play (later resolved) and a desire to concentrate on his burgeoning directorial career on Broadway. Indeed, 1947 saw the opening of his first big commercial Broadway hit, Alan Jay Lerner's Brigadoon.
After Lewis' departure, Lee Strasberg, who Lewis later differed with over certain particulars of The Method, took control of the Studio. As did others—Stella Adler personally met with Stanislavski in Paris and learned that he had discarded his previous technique of "sense memory" or "affective memory" as unworkable and counterproductive. Sanford Meisner, Bobby Lewis, and Elia Kazan joined Stella Adler in turning their backs on the technique, preferring instead to focus on the use of the imagination to stimulate emotion. Lee Strasberg, however, continued to believe in the efficacy of sense memory, and he taught the technique until his death), was asked to join the studio. Despite any such differences, The Actors Studio flourished under Strasberg's leadership and he became Artistic Director several years later, a position he maintained until his death.
Among the plays directed by Robert Lewis were:
My Hearts in the Highlands (1939) by William Saroyan;
Brigadoon (1947) by Alan Jay Lerner;
Regina (1949);
The Happy Time (1950);
An Enemy of the People (1950);
The Grass Harp
(1952);
The Teahouse of the August Moon
(1953) Tony winner for Best Musical and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Director;
Witness for the Prosecution
(1954) from Agatha Christie;
Mister Johnson (1956);
Jamaica
(1957);
The Hidden River (1957);
Handful of Fire (1958);
Chéri (1959);
Kwamina
(1961);
Foxy
(1964);
Traveller Without Luggage (1964);
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
(1965); and
Harold and Maude (1980).
".
On the stage of the Playhouse Theatre in New York City, at 11:30 p.m. on the evening of Monday, April 15, 1957, Robert Lewis presented the first of eight lectures to professional actors, directors and playwrights on the subject of what, exactly, Method acting is and is not. There were some 5,000 written applications to attend the lectures.
In an attempt to clear the air surrounding Method acting, one of Lewis' points revolved around the idea that there are many facets of an actor's preparation and Stanislavski intended that the actor prepare internally and externally, rather than relying exclusively, or too heavily, upon internal techniques such as affective memory. Opponents of Method acting complained of a "generation of mumblers", whose acting conveyed the truth of the actor but not necessarily the truth of the character on the stage. Lewis felt that such performances were the result of an unfortunate misinterpretation of Stanislavski's ideas.
Mr. Lewis declared throughout his career, in fact, that Method actors, who simply spoke stage dialogue truthfully, exactly as they would in life, were discouraged from playing Shakespeare or other classical writers because these author's plays required a stylized method of speaking. In his lectures, Lewis maintained that an actor must learn to use his voice properly and master formal ways of speaking, such as blank verse, if he/she is to succeed in Shakespeare.
However, there have been instances when Method actors did master Shakespeare. Indeed, one of Lewis's students, and one of the actors most often associated with the Method, Marlon Brando, received rave notices and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mark Antony
in the MGM version of Julius Caesar
opposite the great Shakespearian actor John Gielgud
. However, Brando simply did not simply say his lines "cold turkey" (so to speak); he trained for the role by carefully listening to recordings of the great Shakespearean actor John Barrymore
and by being coached by Gielgud. Barrymore and Gielgud were two actors whose styles were the very antithesis of Method acting.
More recently, Al Pacino
, another Method actor, received outstanding reviews for his portrayal of Shylock
in the 2004 film version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Lewis's lectures on Method acting later became the basis of his first book, Method — Or Madness? (Samuel French, 1958).
. He retired from Yale in 1976.
, 1984), a memoir.
Mr. Lewis remained active in theater in the 1980s and continued to teach a new generation of actors and directors through his Robert Lewis Theatre Workshop and at Rice University
in 1981-82. He also served as the first Artistic Director at the Wolf Trap
National Park for the Performing Arts outside Washington, DC.
He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1991. In that same year, Kent State University established the annual Robert Lewis Lifetime Achievement medal in his honor.
Mr. Lewis died of heart failure
on November 23, 1997 in New York City, at the age of 88.
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
in New York in 1947.
In addition to his accomplishments on Broadway and in Hollywood, Lewis' greatest and longest lasting contribution to American theater may be the role he played as one of the foremost acting and directing teachers of his day. He was an early proponent of the Stanislavski System
Stanislavski System
Stanislavski's system is a progression of techniques used to train actors to draw believable emotions to their performances. The method that was originally created and used by Constantin Stanislavski from 1911-1916 was based on the concept of emotional memory for which an actor focuses internally...
of acting technique and a founding member of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he was the Head of the Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
Acting and Directing Departments.
Early years
Robert (Bobby) Lewis was born in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in 1909 to a middle class working family. Encouraged in the arts by his mother, a former contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music, particularly opera. He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting. In 1929, he joined Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
's Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City. His musical background proved invaluable later when he became a director of operas and filmed musicals in Hollywood.
The Group Theatre
In 1931, Lewis became one of the 28 original (and youngest) members of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre. Formed by Harold ClurmanHarold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
, 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"...
and producer Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford was an American theatre producer and director.Born in Akron, Ohio, Crawford majored in drama at Smith College. Following graduation, she moved to New York City and enrolled at the Theatre Guild's school...
, The Group was an ensemble of passionate young actors, directors and writers who came together to explore the inner processes of theatre craft.
Lewis and other members of the Group, such as Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
and Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, were proponents of a new form of acting based on the techniques of Russian director, Constantin Stanislavski. They believed the Stanislavski System
Stanislavski System
Stanislavski's system is a progression of techniques used to train actors to draw believable emotions to their performances. The method that was originally created and used by Constantin Stanislavski from 1911-1916 was based on the concept of emotional memory for which an actor focuses internally...
, first taught in America in the 1920s by former members of the Moscow Art Theatre
Moscow Art Theatre
The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas...
, Richard Boleslavski and Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Ouspenskaya
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.-Life and career:...
at the American Theatre Laboratory where Clurman and Strasberg had studied, resulted in a more truthful, more believable, and therefore more powerful stage performance than could be accomplished with more seemingly external techniques common at that time.
Lewis appeared in several original Group Theatre productions in the 1930s including Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley
Sidney Kingsley was an American dramatist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Men in White in 1934.- Biography :...
's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning Men in White
Men in White (play)
Men in White is a 1933 play written by American playwright Sidney Kingsley....
and Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
' plays Waiting for Lefty
Waiting for Lefty
Waiting for Lefty is a 1935 play by American playwright Clifford Odets. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by the meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing situation utilizes the audience as part of the meeting.While this was not the...
, Awake and Sing!
Awake and Sing!
Awake and Sing! is a drama written by American playwright Clifford Odets. The play was initially produced by The Group Theatre in 1935.-Summary and characters:...
, Paradise Lost and Golden Boy.
Lewis summered at Pine Brook Country Club
Pine Brook Country Club
-Introduction:Pine Brook Country Club began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill in the historic village of Nichols, Connecticut. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook...
in Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, a historic village in southeastern Trumbull on the Gold Coast of Fairfield County, was named after the family who maintained a large farm in its center for almost 300 years. The Nichols Farms Historic District, which encompasses part of the village, is listed on the National Register of...
. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York). Some of the other artists who summered there were; Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan is an American actor. Morgan is well-known for his roles as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H , Pete Porter on both Pete and Gladys and December Bride , Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet , and Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey...
, John Garfield
John Garfield
John Garfield was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner...
, Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
, Will Geer
Will Geer
Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
, Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, Howard Da Silva
Howard Da Silva
Howard Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage...
and Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
.
As in any artistic endeavor, differences in translation and emphasis between the Russian Stanislavski System, and what eventually came to be known as The Method, were debated vigorously in the Group. In the summer of 1934, Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
returned from a trip to Paris where she had worked privately with Stanislavski and directly challenged Lee Strasberg's approach, deepening tensions which led to Strasberg's departure from the Group in 1937. In later years, Lewis held that Strasberg's Method, while valid in its particulars, was a misrepresentation of Stanislavski because it emphasized only some parts of Stanislavski's theory. (See Method — Or Madness?, below)
Despite the Group's success, internal disagreements, the lure of Hollywood and financial issues began to take a toll and, by late 1936, production was suspended. Officially released from Group obligations, many of the members, including Lewis and Group founder Harold Clurman, went off to join other Group members already in Hollywood.
In April 1937, Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford resigned as directors of the Group. A year later, however, Robert Lewis and Elia Kazan returned to New York to restart Group workshops and The Group Theatre Studio resumed with fifty actors chosen from four hundred who auditioned. Lewis, Kazan and Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner , also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed a form of Method acting that is now known as the Meisner technique....
were the principle teachers.
That same year, Harold Clurman returned from Hollywood to stage the Group's production of Clifford Odets' Golden Boy
Golden Boy (musical)
Golden Boy is a musical with a book by Clifford Odets and William Gibson, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse.Based on the 1937 play of the same name by Odets, it focuses on Joe Wellington, a young man from Harlem who, despite his family's objections, turns to prizefighting as a means...
, which became its most successful play. Robert Lewis was cast as Roxy Gottlieb, the prizefight promoter. Lewis later maintained that he had been miscast in the original production, though he assumed a more satisfying role as director of his own successful production of Golden Boy at the St. James Theatre in London, in 1938.
While in London, Lewis studied with Michael Chekov, an actor whose work he admired and whom Stanislavski considered one of the foremost interpreters of his theories. At Chekov's studio in Devonshire at Dartington Hall, Lewis further shaped his understanding of Stanislavski's techniques, or "method", as it was informally known in America.
The following year, Lewis made his Broadway directorial debut with a critically successful production of William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
's My Heart's in the Highlands (1939).
Hollywood
As did other Group members like Franchot ToneFranchot Tone
Franchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...
, Clifford Odets, Stella Adler
Stella Adler
Stella Adler was an American actress and an acclaimed acting teacher, who founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City and the The Stella Adler Academy of Acting in Los Angeles with long-time protege Joanne Linville, who continues to teach and furthers Adler's legacy...
, Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
, Lewis found the "need to sin" in Hollywood (as Odets called it) irresistible.
In his book Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life, Lewis complains that "being short and round", he reluctantly had to accept that, as an actor, he fell into the character, rather than the leading man category.
True enough, after moving to Los Angeles in 1940, he became known in Hollywood for his ability to transform himself into memorable screen characters, particularly characters of different nationalities. He played German officers, such as Colonel Pirosh in Paris After Dark (FOX, 1943), opposite George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
, and Sergeant Schmidt in Son of Lassie (MGM, 1945), starring Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...
, Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...
and June Lockhart
June Lockhart
June Lockhart is an American actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s television, but with memorable performances on stage and in film too. She is remembered as the mother in two TV series, Lassie and Lost in Space. She also portrayed Dr...
. He became French collaborationist Maurice Bonnard in Tonight We Raid Calais (FOX, 1943), and the villainous Japanese Colonel Sato in Dragon Seed (MGM, 1944), starring Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
. A highlight of his Hollywood character actor career came when he played Frenchman Maurice Bottello opposite his friend Charles Chaplin in Chaplin's controversial film Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
Though he went on to perform in and co-direct (with Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
) musicals like Ziegfeld Follies (MGM, 1946), starring Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, and he directed the 1956 version of Anything Goes (Paramount), starring Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and Donald O'Connor
Donald O'Connor
Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...
, Lewis was strictly tied to a contract with MGM studios. Lewis reminisced he felt bored, underused and flustered in Hollywood; and struggled for some years to get out of his contract at MGM so he could return to Broadway and the East coast.
Robert Lewis did return to New York in 1947 to direct his first big commercial success on Broadway, Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner
Alan Jay Lerner was an American lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, he created some of the world's most popular and enduring works of musical theatre for both the stage and on film...
and Frederick Loewe's whimsical musical play Brigadoon.
Even after becoming a successful director, Lewis apparently preferred Broadway to Hollywood: He turned down an offer to direct the film My Fair Lady, choosing instead to remain in New York to stage a play with Cheryl Crawford.
The Actors Studio
In 1947, Lewis co-founded The Actors Studio, a professional actors' workshop, with former Group members, director Elia KazanElia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
and producer Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford
Cheryl Crawford was an American theatre producer and director.Born in Akron, Ohio, Crawford majored in drama at Smith College. Following graduation, she moved to New York City and enrolled at the Theatre Guild's school...
. The Actors Studio was an attempt to recapture the close ensemble nature of the Group, and to evolve and refine the methods first explored by the Group in the 1930s.
The first year, about fifty young actors were invited to join. Lewis taught classes for advanced members with emphasis on inner action or intention, while Kazan, who preferred to work with the younger actors, held forth on technique exercises such as sensory recall, imagination and improvisation.
The Actors Studio, which is still active today, became one of the leading centers for the Stanislavski System, or Method, of dramatic training, producing some of the most influential performers in American theatre and film in the later half of the Twentieth Century.
In the first year alone, Robert Lewis' group, meeting three times a week, consisted of Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
, Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
, Mildred Dunnock
Mildred Dunnock
Mildred Dunnock was an American theater, film and television actress.- Early life :Born in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from Western Senior High School, Dunnock was a school teacher who did not start acting until she was in her early thirties...
, Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
, Herbert Berghof
Herbert Berghof
Herbert Berghof was an Austrian American actor, director and acting coach. He co-founded HB Studio in New York City with his wife Uta Hagen in 1945...
, Tom Ewell
Tom Ewell
Tom Ewell was an American actor.-Early life and career:Born Samuel Yewell Tompkins in Owensboro, Kentucky, where his family expected him to follow in their footsteps as lawyers or whiskey and tobacco dealers....
, John Forsythe
John Forsythe
John Forsythe was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning four decades and three genres: as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father ; as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the crime drama Charlie's...
, Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy (actor)
Kevin McCarthy was an American stage, film, and television actor, who appeared in over two hundred television and film roles. For his role in the 1951 film version of Death of a Salesman, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of...
, Karl Malden
Karl Malden
Karl Malden was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than seven decades, he performed in such classic films as A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, On the Waterfront and One-Eyed Jacks...
, E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall
E. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...
, Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal
Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. She was best known for her film roles as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still , wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's , middle-aged housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud , for which she won...
, Beatrice Straight
Beatrice Straight
Beatrice Whitney Straight was an American theatre, film, and television actress. Hers remains the shortest acting performance in a film to win an Oscar. In her winning role in the 1976 film Network, she was on screen for five minutes and forty seconds, the shortest time ever for the winner of the...
and David Wayne
David Wayne
David Wayne was an American actor with a career spanning nearly 50 years.-Early life and career:...
, to name a few.
Lewis left The Actors Studio over differences with Kazan and Crawford involving the production of a play (later resolved) and a desire to concentrate on his burgeoning directorial career on Broadway. Indeed, 1947 saw the opening of his first big commercial Broadway hit, Alan Jay Lerner's Brigadoon.
After Lewis' departure, Lee Strasberg, who Lewis later differed with over certain particulars of The Method, took control of the Studio. As did others—Stella Adler personally met with Stanislavski in Paris and learned that he had discarded his previous technique of "sense memory" or "affective memory" as unworkable and counterproductive. Sanford Meisner, Bobby Lewis, and Elia Kazan joined Stella Adler in turning their backs on the technique, preferring instead to focus on the use of the imagination to stimulate emotion. Lee Strasberg, however, continued to believe in the efficacy of sense memory, and he taught the technique until his death), was asked to join the studio. Despite any such differences, The Actors Studio flourished under Strasberg's leadership and he became Artistic Director several years later, a position he maintained until his death.
Broadway
With the critical and commercial success of Brigadoon (1947), Robert Lewis was on his way to becoming one of the Great White Way's most respected directors.Among the plays directed by Robert Lewis were:
My Hearts in the Highlands (1939) by William Saroyan;
Brigadoon (1947) by Alan Jay Lerner;
Regina (1949);
The Happy Time (1950);
An Enemy of the People (1950);
The Grass Harp
The Grass Harp
The Grass Harp is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951 It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree...
(1952);
The Teahouse of the August Moon
The Teahouse of the August Moon (play)
The Teahouse of the August Moon is a 1953 play written by John Patrick adapted from the 1951 novel by Vern Sneider. It was later adapted for film in 1956, and the 1970 Broadway musical, Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen.-Plot summary:...
(1953) Tony winner for Best Musical and New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Director;
Witness for the Prosecution
Witness for the Prosecution (play)
Witness for the Prosecution is a play adapted by Agatha Christie based upon her short story titled "The Witness for the Prosecution". The play opened in London on October 28, 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre...
(1954) from Agatha Christie;
Mister Johnson (1956);
Jamaica
Jamaica (musical)
Jamaica is a musical with a book by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Harold Arlen. Harburg was blacklisted in Hollywood at the time of the writing of the musical...
(1957);
The Hidden River (1957);
Handful of Fire (1958);
Chéri (1959);
Kwamina
Kwamina (musical)
Kwamina is a musical which originally debuted on Broadway on October 23, 1961 at the 54th Street Theatre, and ran for 32 performances, ending on November 18, 1961...
(1961);
Foxy
Foxy (musical)
Foxy is a musical with a book by Ian McLellan Hunter and Ring Lardner, Jr., lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and music by Robert Emmett Dolan.Based on Ben Jonson's Volpone, it transports the original play's setting of early-17th century Renaissance Venice to the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898...
(1964);
Traveller Without Luggage (1964);
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is a musical with music by Burton Lane and a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner based loosely on Berkeley Square, written in 1929 by John L. Balderston. It concerns a woman who has ESP and has been reincarnated...
(1965); and
Harold and Maude (1980).
Method — Or Madness?
By the 1950s, Stanislavski's ideas on acting technique had become very popular in America. In his memoirs, Lewis notes that widespread adoption had also fostered widespread confusion and misinformation, both among its defenders and its detractors. There were many different proponents and many different interpretations, some successful and some less so, all lumped together under the popular moniker of "The MethodMethod acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
".
On the stage of the Playhouse Theatre in New York City, at 11:30 p.m. on the evening of Monday, April 15, 1957, Robert Lewis presented the first of eight lectures to professional actors, directors and playwrights on the subject of what, exactly, Method acting is and is not. There were some 5,000 written applications to attend the lectures.
In an attempt to clear the air surrounding Method acting, one of Lewis' points revolved around the idea that there are many facets of an actor's preparation and Stanislavski intended that the actor prepare internally and externally, rather than relying exclusively, or too heavily, upon internal techniques such as affective memory. Opponents of Method acting complained of a "generation of mumblers", whose acting conveyed the truth of the actor but not necessarily the truth of the character on the stage. Lewis felt that such performances were the result of an unfortunate misinterpretation of Stanislavski's ideas.
Mr. Lewis declared throughout his career, in fact, that Method actors, who simply spoke stage dialogue truthfully, exactly as they would in life, were discouraged from playing Shakespeare or other classical writers because these author's plays required a stylized method of speaking. In his lectures, Lewis maintained that an actor must learn to use his voice properly and master formal ways of speaking, such as blank verse, if he/she is to succeed in Shakespeare.
However, there have been instances when Method actors did master Shakespeare. Indeed, one of Lewis's students, and one of the actors most often associated with the Method, Marlon Brando, received rave notices and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mark Antony
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...
in the MGM version of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar (1953 film)
Julius Caesar is an 1953 MGM film adaptation of the play by Shakespeare, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also wrote the uncredited screenplay, and produced by John Houseman. The original music score is by Miklós Rózsa...
opposite the great Shakespearian actor John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
. However, Brando simply did not simply say his lines "cold turkey" (so to speak); he trained for the role by carefully listening to recordings of the great Shakespearean actor John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
and by being coached by Gielgud. Barrymore and Gielgud were two actors whose styles were the very antithesis of Method acting.
More recently, Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
, another Method actor, received outstanding reviews for his portrayal of Shylock
Shylock
Shylock is a fictional character in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.-In the play:In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who lends money to his Christian rival, Antonio, setting the security at a pound of Antonio's flesh...
in the 2004 film version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Lewis's lectures on Method acting later became the basis of his first book, Method — Or Madness? (Samuel French, 1958).
Yale School of Drama
In addition to teaching at The Group Theatre, The Actors Studio, his own Robert Lewis Theatre Workshop and the Lincoln Center Training Program, Lewis was a popular lecturer at many colleges and universities throughout the country for the better part of his career. He returned to the Yale School of Drama often, for long and short stints, depending on his directing schedule, and eventually became Chairman of the Yale Acting and Directing departments in the 1970s under Dean Robert Brustein. During his tenure at Yale, Lewis helped shape the careers of many successful actors such as Meryl StreepMeryl Streep
Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...
. He retired from Yale in 1976.
Later years
After Method — or Madness?, Robert Lewis wrote two other books on acting, Advice to the Players (Harper & Row, 1980), an actors handbook, and Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life (Stein and DayStein and Day
Stein and Day, Inc. was an American publishing company founded by Sol Stein and his wife Patricia Day in 1962. Stein was both the publisher and the editor-in-chief...
, 1984), a memoir.
Mr. Lewis remained active in theater in the 1980s and continued to teach a new generation of actors and directors through his Robert Lewis Theatre Workshop and at Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
in 1981-82. He also served as the first Artistic Director at the Wolf Trap
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, known locally in the Washington, D.C. area as simply Wolf Trap, is a performing arts center located on 130 acres of national park land in Wolf Trap, Virginia...
National Park for the Performing Arts outside Washington, DC.
He was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1991. In that same year, Kent State University established the annual Robert Lewis Lifetime Achievement medal in his honor.
Mr. Lewis died of heart failure
Cardiovascular disease
Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...
on November 23, 1997 in New York City, at the age of 88.