36 Facts About Stella Adler

Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher.

Stella Adler founded the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City in 1949.

Stella Adler was born in Manhattan's Lower East Side in New York City.

Stella Adler was the youngest daughter of Sara and Jacob P Adler, the sister of Luther and Jay Adler, and half-sister of Charles Adler and Celia Adler, star of the Yiddish Theater.

Stella Adler became the most famous and influential member of her family.

Stella Adler began acting at the age of four as a part of the Independent Yiddish Art Company of her parents.

Stella Adler began her acting career at the age of four in the play Broken Hearts at the Grand Street Theatre on the Lower East Side, as a part of her parents' Independent Yiddish Art Company.

Stella Adler grew up acting alongside her parents, often playing roles of boys and girls.

Stella Adler made her London debut, at the age of 18, as Naomi in Elisa Ben Avia with her father's company, in which she appeared for a year before returning to New York.

Stella Adler made her English-language debut on Broadway in 1922 as the Butterfly in The World We Live In, and she spent a season in the vaudeville circuit.

In 1934, Stella Adler went to Paris with Harold Clurman and studied intensively with Stanislavski for five weeks.

Stella Adler taught at the New School, and the Yale School of Drama.

For many years, Stella Adler led the undergraduate drama department at New York University, and became one of America's leading acting teachers.

Stella Adler was much more than a teacher of acting.

Stella Adler never lent herself to vulgar exploitations, as some other well-known so-called "methods" of acting have done.

Stella Adler appeared in only three films: Love on Toast, Shadow of the Thin Man, and My Girl Tisa.

Stella Adler concluded her acting career in 1961, after 55 years.

Stella Adler was the only member of the Group Theatre to study with Konstantin Stanislavski.

Stella Adler was a prominent member of the Group Theatre, but differences with Lee Strasberg over Stanislavski's system made her leave the group.

Stella Adler met with Stanislavski again later in his career and questioned him on Strasberg's interpretation.

Stella Adler told her that he had abandoned emotional memory, which had been Strasberg's dominant paradigm, but that they both believed that actors did not have what is required to play a variety of roles already instilled inside them, and that extensive research was needed to understand the experiences of characters who have different values originating from different cultures.

Stella Adler trained actors' sensory imagination to help make the characters' experiences more vivid.

Stella Adler believed that mastery of the physical and vocal aspects of acting was necessary for the actor to command the stage, and that all body language should be carefully crafted and voices need to be clear and expressive.

Stella Adler often referred to this as an actor's "size" or "worthiness of the stage".

Devo Cutler-Rubenstein credits Stella Adler for inspiring her that a character is made real through one's imagination.

Stella Adler was related to Jerry Stella Adler, an actor and theatre director.

Stella Adler married three times, first to Horace Eliascheff, the father of her only child Ellen, then from 1943 to 1960 to director and critic Harold Clurman, one of the founders of the Group Theatre.

Stella Adler was finally married to physicist and novelist Mitchell A Wilson, who died in 1973.

On December 21,1992, Stella Adler died from heart failure at the age of 91 in Los Angeles.

Stella Adler was interred in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Glendale, New York.

Stella Adler's technique, based on a balanced and pragmatic combination of imagination and memory, is hugely credited with introducing the subtle and insightful details and a deep physical embodiment of a character.

In 1991, Stella Adler was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Over 1,100 audio and video recordings of Stella Adler teaching from the 1960s to the 1980s have been digitized by the Center and are accessible on site.

Stella Adler is a character in Names, Mark Kemble's play about former Group Theatre members' struggles with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The acting schools Stella Adler founded still operate today in New York City and Los Angeles.

Stella Adler's method, based on use of the actor's imagination, has been studied by actors such as many actors, including Marlon Brando, who served as the New York studio's honorary chairman until his death, upon which he was replaced by Warren Beatty.