The celebrated host, writer, producer, lyricist, academic, and dean emeritus was best known for his work on ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’.
James Lipton, acclaimed host of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School, has died at 93. In a statement from his wife Kedakai Mercedes Lipton, Mr. Lipton passed away in his Manhattan home from bladder cancer.
In the 1990s, Mr. Lipton conceived of a seminar program to disseminate his 12-years of performance studies to a new generation. He approached the Actors Studio, a prestigious acting school founded by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, and Robert Lewis in 1947 known for its teachings of the Stanislavsky method and where Lee Strasberg developed and taught method acting.
However, with no steady source of income, the Actors Studio was in danger of closing. Mr. Lipton’s proposed curriculum promised to renew the organisation. Pairing the Actors Studio with The New School, Mr. Lipton created the Actors Studio Drama School, which offered a three-year degree in acting. It became the largest acting school in America three years after its opening, with Mr. Lipton as its dean.
The program also included a masterclass, where Mr. Lipton would interview a guest about acting for four to five hours. Mr. Lipton recognised the value of these interviews and approached various television networks to broadcast the masterclass, eventually settling with Bravo.
Cutting down these lengthy interviews into episodes of one or two hours, Bravo began airing ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ in 1994 with Mr. Lipton’s first guest, former Actors Studio president and alumni, Paul Newman. The minimal setting, just Mr. Lipton and his guest sitting in armchairs against a black backdrop, and low budget reflected Mr. Lipton’s vision for the show.
“I made a vow early on that we would not deal in gossip — only in craft,” Mr. Lipton said in 2018.
Louis James Lipton was born in Detroit, on September 19, 1926, to Lawrence Lipton and Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Lipton, née Weinberg.
Betty, a teacher and librarian, encouraged her son in the arts, impressing a lifelong love of language and theatre. Lawrence, a journalist and a Beat writer, left the family after divorcing Betty when Mr. Lipton was 6. To support the family, a teenaged Mr. Lipton worked as a copy boy for The Detroit Times and as an actor for the Catholic Theatre of Detroit.
After graduation, Mr. Lipton decided to further pursue acting, landing a role on ‘The Lone Ranger’ radio show as the titular character’s nephew, Dan Reid.
After a brief time in the Air Force after World War II, Mr. Lipton moved to New York to become a lawyer and avoid the instability of his father’s life.
“But I thought, ‘I’d better take some acting classes if I’m going to earn a living so I can be a lawyer,’” Mr. Lipton said in an interview with Parade, “Stella Adler accepted me for her [drama] class. About five years later, I said to myself, ‘Stop kidding. You don’t want to be a lawyer. This is what you want to do.’”
Mr. Lipton never broke out as an actor, apart from a recurring role on the soap opera ‘Guiding Lights’ as gifted surgeon Dr. Dick Grant. Rather, Mr. Lipton had better success as a writer. He worked on a number of scripts for soap operas; wrote ‘Mirrors’, a novel about dancers; a TV-movie called ‘Copacabana’; and even a non-fiction book about etymology, ‘An Exaltation of Larks.’
Mr. Lipton eventually found a talent for producing. In 1977, Mr. Lipton produced President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural gala, the first to be televised. Mr. Lipton worked with Bob Hope for dozens of birthday specials for the comedian.
Mr. Lipton married Shirley Blanc, and later actress Nina Foch until their divorce in 1958. In 1970, he married Kedakai Turner who attended numerous recordings of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’.
“We met at the ballet,” recounted Mr. Lipton. “I took one look at her and I fell madly in love. I called her the next day and asked her to have dinner with me. Nine months later we were married.”
Mr. Lipton also spent time in France as the mecs – or pimp – to a bordello in the 1950s during an economic slump for the country. Mr. Lipton expressed no regrets over that time, saying “It was perfectly respectable for [women] to go into le milieu… The French mecs didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents. And they took a cut. That’s how I lived. I was going through my rites of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life.”
Mr. Lipton brought an unusual interpretation to the field of television interviewers. He was labelled as pompous and sycophantic for his verbose questions and his open admiration for his interviewees. As such, Mr. Lipton has been repeatedly parodied by comedians, all of which Mr. Lipton took in good humour.
One of his greatest achievements as an interviewer was his ability to incite an honest conversation with his guests.
”It is not journalism,” Mr. Lipton stated. ”It is meant as an antidote to what is normally done with these people. I want to create an environment where people are willing to talk about the craft, not about themselves as people but as artists.”
Mr. Lipton prepared for guests over a two-week period before the episode was filmed, culling and refining questions based on the work of a researcher hired to assemble information for the interview. Mr. Lipton also makes an effort to watch as many of his guests’ films as possible, including early home movies and student films.
The result of this monastic devotion to his craft, Mr. Lipton was able to forge a connection with his guests that explored their interpretation of the craft and personal lives. Jack Lemmon admitted to his struggle with alcoholism, Ben Kingsley cried when speaking of the death of his mother, Spike Lee shed tears too when he recounted the difficulties of raising funding for ‘Malcolm X’ after Columbia Pictures pulled out. Sean Penn, in the spirit of poet Charles Bukowski, summed up the experiences that Mr. Lipton’s guests’ find themselves in, speaking of the struggle to ”find drama and poetry in people’s lives as we live them.”
“[Mr. Lipton] has a lifelong commitment to the art or craft of acting,” said Kevin Kline after an episode. ”He never makes light of it. He never turns it into a sound bite. He reviews your entire career, although you feel like you are going to get graded at the end of it. It’s frightening.”
Mr. Lipton retired as dean of the Actors Studio Drama School in 2004, continuing to work as the show’s host and executive producer, as well as taking on the role of dean emeritus. Following the launch of the show, Mr. Lipton experienced a small acting revival, depicting himself on ‘The Simpsons’ and holding a recurring guest role on ‘Arrested Development’ as Warden Stefan Gentles.
Mr. Lipton finally retired from ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ in 2018 when the show moved from Bravo to Ovation after 22 seasons as host and Ted Danson as his final guest. When he was asked by Larry King who he wanted most to be a guest on the show, Mr. Lipton said “the night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair next to me would be the night that I’ve waited for since we started this thing 23 years ago. And it turned out to be Bradley Cooper.”
Cooper had studied at the Actors Studio, auditioning for the graduate degree and was selected by Mr. Lipton personally to attend the school. Cooper was even featured in some episodes of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ as a student, when Sean Penn, Steven Spielberg, and Robert DeNiro were guests. Eventually, Cooper returned as a guest in the 17th season.
“We looked at each other and burst into tears,” Mr. Lipton said. “It was one of the greatest nights of my life.”
Mr. Lipton was the recipient of three honorary Ph.D.s, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys, Critic’s Choice Award for best reality show host, and was bestowed the French Republic’s Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
For the 200th episode of ‘Inside the Actor’s Studio’, Mr. Lipton reversed the roles and became the guest on his own show, choosing three-time guest Dave Chappelle to interview him.
It was not, however, until some years prior to this 200th episode that Mr. Lipton had actually answered the same ten questions he asks every guest. The source of these ten questions Mr. Lipton had appropriated from the French talk show host Bernard Pivot, who in turn modelled it after the Proust Questionnaire. The questions are as follows:
- What is your favourite word?
- What is your least favourite word?
- What turns you on?
- What turns you off?
- What sound or noise do you love?
- What sound or noise do you hate?
- What is your favourite curse word?
- What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
- What profession would you not like to do?
- If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
”I will only answer these questions for Bernard Pivot,” Mr. Lipton had declared. ”He is the professional. I am the amateur.”
Mr. Lipton did answer these questions when he was featured as the last guest on Mr. Pivot’s show before the latter’s retirement after 26 years on the air. Mr. Pivot hadn’t answered the questions until this time either.
To the final question, what Mr. Lipton would want God to say to him when he arrived at heaven, Mr. Lipton clarified that he was an atheist but hoped God would say, “You see, Jim, you were wrong. I exist. But you may come in anyway.”
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