Estelle Harman
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Estelle Harman was an esteemed acting coach in Los Angeles. She began as an acting instructor at UCLA in the 1950s, then was hired by Universal Studios as Head of Talent to groom their stable of actors, which included Rock Hudson, Bill Bixby and Tony Curtis.
As the contract years ended in Hollywood, she started her own school — the Estelle Harman Actors Workshop. It operated two theatres, an on-camera class and offered a curriculum that met federal requirements for financial aid. The school closed shortly before her death in the mid-1990s. The list of actors that studied with her is enormous, many of whom went on to successful acting careers.
Grounded firmly in Shakespeare, she emphasized the "independent actor" who could pull from all the tools the different acting philosophies offered (Sanford Meisner, Stanislavsky) without having to be dogmatic about any of them.
She was a talented small woman with a booming voice, that took on a sandpaper quality in her later years due to choking while smoking.
