Biography for
Maria Ouspenskaya More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

29 July 1876, Tula, Russia

Date of Death

3 December 1949, Los Angeles, California, USA (stroke)

Height

5' 1½" (1.56 m)

Mini Biography

Born the daughter of a lawyer, Ouspenskaya studied singing at the Warsaw Conservatory and acting at Adasheff's School of the Drama in Moscow. She received her practical training as an actress touring stock in the Russian provinces and then joined the Moscow Art Theatre. It was here that she first worked under the direction of the great Konstantin Stanislavski, whose "Method" she would go on to promote for the remainder of her life. She came to America with the Art Theatre in 1922 and, after their return to Moscow, stayed to become a dominant Broadway actress for more than a decade. In 1929 she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York. It was to help keep the school funded that she accepted her first Hollywod film, Dodsworth (1936) (she had appeared in perhaps six silent movies in Russia). This began a lucrative association, for Ouspenskaya, Hollywood and the viewing public, that would last for more than a dozen years and two dozen films. But thanks to her often-superior demeanor and addiction to astrology, she could prove maddening on the set. She remained in nearly daily communication with L.A. Times' astrologer Carroll Righter who would advise her on the best times to appear on camera along with when and where to travel. As a consequence most casts and crews disliked the 90-pound actress intensely. She bounced between prestigious A-pictures (Love Affair (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940)) and B-programmers (Mystery of Marie Roget (1942), Tarzan and the Amazons (1945)), performing--- and behaving--- with equal intensity. She's especially notable for having appeared in the last great Universal horror entry, The Wolf Man (1941) and the interesting Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). A heavy smoker, she fell asleep with a lit cigarette in late November 1949 and suffered massive burns. She died of a stroke in the hospital three days later.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Chris Stone

Trivia

She died of a stroke 3 days after a lighted cigarette set fire to her bed.

She received two supporting Oscar nominations for the films Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939). She appeared in the former for only four minutes and in the latter, a total of ten minutes.

Studied opera in both Warsaw and Moscow but switched gears to acting and started off at the Adasheff's School of Drama at the age of 30.

An actor/instructor with Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre beginning in 1911, she toured throughout Europe during the Communist takeover and appeared in over 100 plays. When the company departed for Moscow after a tour in the United States, she remained behind.

Taught acting at New York's American Laboratory Theatre in the 20s until forming her own acting school, the Maria Ouspenskaya School of Dramatic Arts, in 1929. She moved her studio to Hollywood in the late 30s when her film career began to flourish. Some of her more famous students included John Garfield and acting gurus Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg.

Is portrayed by Celia Lovsky in Harlow (1965/II)

Co-founder of the American Laboratory Theater with the Polish actor/film director Richard Boleslawski, she was the first Russian actor from the Moscow Art Theatre to teach the Stanislavski System in the United States. Her methods greatly influenced her young students Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, founders the Group Theater (1931-1940). Strasberg first practiced his very personal variation of the system, now known as "The Method," with the Group actors Stella Adler and Luther Adler, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone, Morris Carnovsky, John Garfield and Bobby Lewis. Adler went on to teach Marlon Brando; Meisner taught Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton; Lewis taught Meryl Streep. What the world knows as the psychologically realistic American acting style can be traced back to the enduring influence of Mme. Ouspenskaya.

Her gravestone at Forest Lawn Cemetery gives her year of birth as 1887.

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