Stella Adler (1902-1992), founder of the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting, is best known as a teacher of the principles of acting and character and script analysis. As a child, she began acting in the New York Yiddish Theater with her parents, Jacob and Sara Adler. She joined the American Laboratory Theatre of Russian actor and teacher Richard Boleslavsky in the mid-1920s and in 1931 became part of the Group Theatre through Harold Clurman, whom she married in 1943.
In 1934 Adler briefly visited Europe, where she met and studied with the actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky of the Moscow Art Theatre. Three years later, she moved to Hollywood and acted in films for six years before returning to New York to act and direct. She began her teaching career at the New School for Social Research in the mid-1940s. In 1949 she founded the Stella Adler Theater Studio, later the Stella Adler Conservatory, still in existence today as the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Adler continued to teach acting for more than forty years and counted many prominent actors of the twentieth century among her students.
Adler was married to Harold Clurman from 1943 until 1960. She was previously married to Horace Eleaschreff and was later married to Mitchell Wilson until his death in 1973. Adler and Eleaschreff had one daughter, Ellen. Stella Adler died of heart failure in Los Angeles, California, on December 22, 1992.
Harold Clurman (1901-1980), a central figure in twentieth century American theater, was a director, producer, drama critic, and co-founder of the Group Theatre. Clurman became attracted to the theater at age six, when he attended a production starring Jacob Adler. He attended Columbia University and the University of Paris (degree, 1923). Upon returning to New York in 1924, Clurman, though he had no formal training, became involved in theater, beginning as an actor, stage manager, and play reader. Having seen Stanislavsky's ensemble approach with the Moscow Art Theatre, Clurman worked to create a permanent acting company in the United States. Together with Lee Strasberg and Cheryl Crawford, he formed the Group Theatre in 1931 and served as its director until it dissolved in 1941. The Group Theatre, with its ensemble approach and emotional and realistic productions that expressed political and social views about contemporary issues, permanently altered American theater's previous emphasis on pure entertainment.
Following the dissolution of the Group Theatre, Clurman worked in Hollywood as a film producer and director before returning to New York in 1946. He was an arts critic for Tomorrow(1946-1952) and a theater critic for New Republic (1949-1952), Nation (1953-1980), and the London Observer (1959 and 1963). In addition, between 1935 and his death in 1980, Clurman directed over forty stage productions, including plays by Lillian Hellman (The Autumn Garden, 1951), Carson McCullers (A Member of the Wedding, 1950), Arthur Miller (Incident at Vichy, 1964), Clifford Odets (Golden Boy, 1937), Eugene O'Neill (Desire under the Elms, 1952, A Touch of the Poet, 1958, and The Iceman Cometh, 1968), and Tennessee Williams (Orpheus Descending, 1957), among others.
Clurman was married to Stella Adler from 1943 until 1960 and married to Juleen Compton in 1960. He died in New York of cancer on September 9, 1980.
| Stella Adler and Harold Clurman Papers Finding Aid | ||||
| Title Page | Biographical Sketches |
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Folder List | Index of Plays and Playwrights |
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