Stella
Adler was
born in New York on 10th February, 1901.
She joined the Group
Theatre was formed in New York by Harold
Clurman and Lee Strasberg in
1931. Others involved in the group included Elia
Kazan, Stella Adler, John
Garfield, Howard
Da Silva, Franchot Tone, John
Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Clifford
Odets and
Lee
J. Cobb.
Members of the group tended to hold left-wing
political views and wanted to produce plays that dealt with important
social issues.
Adler, who later married Harold
Clurman, played leading roles in Gentle
Woman (John
Howard Lawson) and Awake
and Sing! and
Paradise Lost
(Clifford
Odets).
While working with the group Lee
Strasberg developed what became known as the Method. Based on
the ideas of the Russian director, Konstantin
Stanislavsky, it was a system of training and rehearsal for actors
which bases a performance upon inner emotional experience, discovered
largely through
the medium of improvisation. Adler was influenced by Strasberg's approach
to acting and this can be seen in her performances in the films,
Love on Toast
(1938), Shadow of
the Thin Man (1941) and My
Girl Tisa (1948).
After the Second World War, most of the members
of the group were investigated by House
of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
Some like Elia
Kazan, Clifford
Odets and
Lee
J. Cobb
testified and named other members of left-wing groups in the 1930s.
Those that refused to do this such as Stella
Adler,
John
Garfield, Howard
Da Silva, John Randolph, and Joseph
Bromberg were
blacklisted.
Unable to find work in the cinema and on television, Adler became
primarily a teacher of other actors. Whereas Lee
Strasberg
placed an emphasis on self, Adler urged students to transcend their
own experiences and by investigating the play's circumstances rather
than their own. Her students included Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro,
Warren Beatty and Harvey Keitel. Stella
Adler died in Los Angeles, California on 21st December, 1992.
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