Elia Kazan
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| Elia Kazan | |||||||||||||||
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| Born | Elias Kazancıoğlu September 7, 1909 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire |
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| Died | September 28, 2003 (aged 94) New York City, New York, US |
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| Years active | 1934-1976 | ||||||||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Molly Day Thatcher (1932-1963) Barbara Loden (1967-1980) Frances Rudges (1982-2003) |
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Elia Kazan, (Greek: Ηλίας Καζάν) (Turkish: Elias Kazancıoğlu ) (September 7, 1909 – September 28, 2003) was a Greek-American award-winning film and theatre director, film and theatrical producer, screenwriter, novelist and cofounder of the Actors Studio in New York in 1947.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Kazan was born Elias Kazancıoğlu in the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople (today's Istanbul, Turkey) to a Greek family.[1][2] His family emigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in New York City, where his father, George Kazancıoğlu, became a rug merchant. Kazan's father expected that his son would go into the family business, but his mother, Athena, encouraged Kazan to make his own decisions.
Kazan attended public schools in New York City and New Rochelle, New York. After graduating from Williams College, Massachusetts, Kazan studied at Yale University's School of Drama. In the 1930s, Kazan acted with New York's Group Theatre, alongside (among others) Lee Strasberg, Clifford Odets, and Stella and Luther Adler. During this period, Kazan earned his nickname 'Gadg,' short for Gadget - he never learned to love the name. For about 19 months in 1934-36, Kazan was a member of a secret Communist cell.[1]
[edit] Career
[edit] Theatrical
He became one of the most visible members of the Hollywood elite. Kazan's theater credits included acting in Men in White, Waiting for Lefty, Johnny Johnson, and Golden Boy, and directing A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), two of the plays that made Tennessee Williams a theatrical and literary force, and All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman, (1949) the plays which did much the same for Arthur Miller. He received three Tony Awards, winning for All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and J.B.
[edit] Film director
Kazan's history as a film director is scarcely less noteworthy. He won two Academy Awards for Best Director, for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954). He elicited remarkable performances from actors such as Marlon Brando and Oscar winners Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden and Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (the film version of Tennessee Williams' play), James Dean and Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet in East of Eden (adapted from the John Steinbeck novel), and Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd.
[edit] HUAC controversy
Kazan's later career was marked by his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the postwar "Red Scare", in which he "named names." Some others who named names, for a variety of reasons, included Jerome Robbins, Robert Taylor, Sterling Hayden, Leo Townsend, Burl Ives, Budd Schulberg and Lela Rogers (mother of Ginger Rogers).
Kazan had briefly been a member of the Communist Party in his youth, when working as part of a theater troupe, the Group Theater, in the 1930s. At the time, the Group Theater included several theater professionals who had Communist or other left-wing sympathies. A committed Socialist, Kazan felt betrayed by Stalin's atrocities and the ideological rigidity of Communists in general. He was personally offended when Party functionaries tried to intervene in the artistic decisions of his theater group.
At first, although Kazan agreed to testify before HUAC, and readily admitted his former membership in the Communist Party, he refused to name others who had been members. But Kazan felt increasing pressure from Hollywood studio management to cooperate with the Committee and provided the names of former Party members or those connected with Party activities, in order to preserve his career.
He knew that the names were already known to the Committee, since HUAC had already obtained copies of Communist Party membership archives, and that his testimony would be used primarily to increase media attention. After a delay, during which he asked for and received permission to release the names of former members of the Party, he was recalled to testify, and at the second examination Kazan provided testimony to the Committee.
The 'naming of names' by some in Hollywood was used as a tactic by HUAC to validate the Committee's actions and galvanize reaction against those who were merely friends or relations of the accused, so-called fellow travelers. One of those named as being a Party member was the wife of noted actor John Garfield, with whom Kazan had worked in the Group Theatre troupe, and who was being investigated by HUAC. HUAC failed to uncover any evidence of Communist Party membership by Garfield himself, but Garfield was nonetheless subpoenaed.
As Kazan later explained, he felt that it was in the best interest of the country and his own liberal beliefs to cooperate with HUAC's anti-communist efforts in order to counter Communists in Hollywood who were co-opting the liberal agenda. Kazan felt no allegiance to Communism, and had been disillusioned by the Soviet Union's brutal record of murder and repression during Stalin's Purges, and the Polish massacres of World War II. He still resented the Party's attempt to force their agenda on him during his theatre group days. American playwrights Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller publicly and bitterly disagreed with Kazan's reasoning. Though Kazan testified to HUAC under threat of ostracism and blacklisting by the Hollywood studios, he was in turn shunned and ostracized by many of his former friends. Always a confirmed liberal and progressive, even socialist in his political outlook, Kazan now found himself hated by the left, yet mistrusted by many on the right.
Some have perceived elements of Kazan's own reaction to his critics in the film On the Waterfront, in which the protagonist courageously agrees to testify against his former mentor, a corrupt dockland union boss. Miller in his turn responded with the play A View from the Bridge, also set among dock-workers, in which his main character informs on two illegal immigrants based on ignoble, self-serving motivations.
[edit] Personal life
Elia Kazan was married three times. His first wife was Molly Day Thacher, playwright; married from 1932 until her death in 1963, this marriage produced two daughters and two sons. His second wife was Barbara Loden, actress; married from 1969 until her death in 1980, this marriage produced one son. Finally, he was married to Frances Rudge from 1982 until his death in 2003 from natural causes at his home in New York. He was 94 years old. Constance Dowling had been involved in a long affair with him while in New York. He couldn't bring himself to leave his first wife and the affair ended when Dowling went to Hollywood in 1944 to make Up in Arms under contract to Samuel Goldwyn.
[edit] The life of a Greek-American
In 1967, Kazan published The Arrangement, a novel about an emotionally-battered middle-aged Greek-American living a double life in California as both an advertising executive, under the name "Eddie Andreson", and a serious, muckraking magazine writer under the name "Evans Arness", neither of which was his birth name, Evangelos Arness. The character's "arrangement" of his life takes a huge toll on him, eventually leading him to a suicide attempt and a nervous breakdown. Critics saw parallels to Kazan's own life, most notably that the character had briefly been a member of the Communist Party prior to World War II and of course, the character's Anatolian Greek background and Americanization of his birth name. Kazan disclaimed any autobiographical elements and stated that the novel was a work of fiction, nothing more or less. It served as the basis for his 1969 film of the same name.
[edit] Awards and nominations
In 1999, Kazan received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. He was accompanied by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro who warned the audience sotto voce not to misbehave. Robert De Niro himself had appeared in a film about the Hollywood Red Scare. While many in Hollywood who had experienced the Red Scare felt that enough time had passed that it was appropriate to bury the hatchet and recognize Kazan's great artistic accomplishments, others did not. Some Hollywood celebrities expressed outrage, and former blacklisted writer Abraham Polonsky stated that he wished Kazan would be shot onstage.[3]
Footage from the 1999 Oscars suggest fully three-quarters of those present in the audience gave him a standing ovation, including Lynn Redgrave, Karl Malden, Kurt Russell, Kathy Bates, Meryl Streep and the very liberal Warren Beatty (Beatty later said that he was applauding because Kazan had directed him in his first film Splendor in the Grass, but was not endorsing the decision he made). However, the footage also showed actors such as Ed Harris, Nick Nolte, Ian McKellen, Richard Dreyfuss, Amy Madigan, Ed Begley, Jr. and Holly Hunter sitting on their hands or refusing to applaud. Still others, such as Steven Spielberg, Jim Carrey and Sherry Lansing applauded politely, but did not rise. [4]
[edit] Academy Awards
[edit] Tony Awards
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[edit] Cannes Film Festival Awards
[edit] Venice Film Festival Awards
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[edit] Filmography
| Year | Film | Oscar nominations | Oscar wins | |
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| 1937 | The People of the Cumberland | |||
| 1945 | A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | 2 | 1 | |
| Watchtower Over Tomorrow | ||||
| 1947 | The Sea of Grass | |||
| Boomerang! | 1 | |||
| Gentleman's Agreement | 8 | 3 | ||
| 1949 | Pinky | 3 | ||
| 1950 | Panic in the Streets | 1 | 1 | |
| 1951 | A Streetcar Named Desire | 12 | 4 | |
| 1952 | Viva Zapata! | 5 | 1 | |
| 1953 | Man on a Tightrope | |||
| 1954 | On the Waterfront | 12 | 8 | |
| 1955 | East of Eden | 4 | 1 | |
| 1956 | Baby Doll | 4 | ||
| 1957 | A Face in the Crowd | |||
| 1960 | Wild River | |||
| 1961 | Splendor in the Grass | 2 | 1 | |
| 1963 | America, America | 4 | 1 | |
| 1969 | The Arrangement | |||
| 1972 | The Visitors | |||
| 1976 | The Last Tycoon | 1 |
[edit] Bibliography
- Kazan, Elia (1951). The Arrangement: A Novel. New York: Stein and Day. OCLC 36500300.
- Kazan, Elia (1962). America America. New York: Popular Library. OCLC 21378773.
- Kazan, Elia (1972). The Assassins. London: Collins. ISBN 0002210355.
- Kazan, Elia (1973). Kazan on Kazan. London: Secker & Warburg. OCLC 221452156.
- Kazan, Elia (1988). Elia Kazan: A Life. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0394559533.
- Kazan, Elia (1975). The Understudy. New York: Stein and Day. OCLC 9666336.
- Kazan, Elia (1977). A Kazan Reader. New York: Stein and Day. ISBN 0812821939.
- Kazan, Elia (1978). Acts of Love. New York: Warner. ISBN 0446855537.
- Kazan, Elia (1982). The Anatolian. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0394525604.
- Kazan, Elia; Young, Jeff (1999). The Master Director Discusses His Films. New York: Newmarket Press. ISBN 1557043388.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Elia Kazan (1909-2003) - Elia Kazanjoglous. Pegasos (2003). Retrieved on 2008-05-28.
- ^ Biography of Elia Kazan. The Kennedy Center (2008). Retrieved on 2008-05-28.
- ^ "Some Rude to Kazan" (22 March 1999). CyberAlert 4 (52). Media Research Center.
- ^ Martin Scorcese; Robert DeNiro; Elia Kazan. Elia Kazan receiving an Honorary Oscar (.SWF) [Video]. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles, California: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved on 2008-05-28. Event occurs at 00:00:00 to 00:03:20 (inclusive).
[edit] Further reading
- Schickel, Richard (2005). Elia Kazan: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0060195797.
[edit] External links
- Elia Kazan at Find A Grave
- Elia Kazan at the Internet Broadway Database
- Elia Kazan at the Internet Movie Database
- 1985 audio interview with Elia Kazan by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio at Wired for Books.
- Assessing Kazan: His Life and Choice (NYT Books of the Times)
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Kazan, Elia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kazanjoglou, Elias |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Greek-American film and theatre director, film and theatrical producer, screenwriter, novelist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 7, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 28, 2003 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | New York, US |
