System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Elia Kazan, Director
American stage and film director, Elia Kazan, whose best-known works include GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT (1948, Oscar) and ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), died Sunday, September 28, 2003, at his Manhattan home. He was 94.
Elia Kazan was born in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey to a Greek rug merchant and his wife. In 1913, at the age of four, his family emigrated to the US. He grew up in a Greek neighbourhood in Harlem and later suburban New Rochelle.
He went to Williams College, where he picked up the nickname Gadget -- "I guess because I was small, compact and eccentric, " he once said. Shortened to Gadge, it was a name that stuck -- and one that he came to loathe. After graduating from Williams College, Kazan studied drama at Yale. In the 1930s Kazan acted with New York's Group Theater and co-founded in 1947 the Actor's Studio. He directed his first stage play in 1935 and in the 1940s he gained fame as one of Broadway's finest talents. Kazan was especially acclaimed for his powerful and realistic direction of the plays of Tennessee Williams, such as A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), and Arthur Miller, such as Death of a Salesman (1948). Among other stage successes were The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), All My Sons (1947), and Tea and Sympathy (1953).
In Hollywood, he won Oscars for directing Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront. He also did A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the film version of Streetcar, East of Eden, Splendor in the Grass, A Face in the Crowd and The Last Tycoon.
Kazan turned to writing in his 50s and produced six novels -- including several best sellers -- and an autobiography. The first two novels, America, America and The Arrangement, he also made into movies.
To some, Kazan diminished his stature when he went before the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the McCarthy era and named people he said had been members of the Communist party with him in the mid-1930s. He survived even his colleagues condemnation when other directors, screenwriters, actors and others couldn't continue their career in film business when they made the opposite decision. He insisted years later that he bore no guilt as a result of what some saw as a betrayal.
On stage Kazan continued his interpretations of Tennessee Williams's and Arthur Miller's plays and worked also with such playwrights as Robert Anderson, William Inge. Kazan's films AMERICA AMERICA (1963), following the adventures of a young Anatolian Greek immigrant (Stathis Giallelis), and THE ARRANGEMENT (1969), starring Kirk Douglas, were based on his own novel.
In the 1970s Kazan made THE VISITORS (1972), about two Vietnam vets, who invade the house of third vet. THE LAST TYCOON (1976), his last film, set in Hollywood in the 1930s. It was based on F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel, adapted by Harold Pinter. Robert de Niro was a movie producer, whose character was based on the famous Irving Thalberg. Both films reveived mixed critics - The Visitors was considered a total failure, as was The Last Tycoon.
Kazan devoted more of his time to writing, publishing novels THE UNDERSTUDY (1974), ACT OF LOVE (1978). In the 1980s appeared THE ANATOLIAN (1982), AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY (1989) and his autobiography ELIA KAZAN: A LIFE (1988).
In early 1999, leaders of the motion picture academy announced they would give Kazan a special Academy Award for his life's work. The decision reopened wounds and touched off a painful controversy. On awards night, some in the audience withheld applause, though others gave him a warm reception. Director Martin Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro presented the award.
Kazan married three times. With first wife Molly Day Thatcher he had four children, Judy, Chris, Nick and Katharine. After her death he married Barbara Loden and they had two sons, Leo and Marco. She died of cancer in 1967; in 1982 he married Frances Rudge.
