Elia Kazan
伊利亚·卡赞
Greek-American director, 1909–2003. He was among the founders of the Actors Studio and worked in both theatre and film. In 1952 he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and named others, which remained a matter of controversy for the rest of his life.
Career
Kazan was born in Istanbul to a Greek family and moved to the United States as a child. He acted with the Group Theatre in the 1930s before turning to directing, and staged the first Broadway productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman. In 1947 he was among the founders of the Actors Studio, which taught an approach to acting derived from Stanislavski.
He won Academy Awards for directing Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront. In 1952 he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and named eight former Group Theatre colleagues who had belonged to the Communist Party, ending a number of those friendships for good. When he received an honorary Oscar in 1999, part of the audience declined to stand.
