Mira Rostova
Encyclopedia
Mira Rostova was a Russia
n-born American
acting teacher, best known for her own variation of method acting
that she used in coaching of Montgomery Clift
. Her other acting students included Armand Assante
, Alec Baldwin
, Peter Gallagher
, Jessica Lange
, Jerry Orbach
and Madonna
(who attended approximately half a dozen class sessions, working on scenes from Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke and Isherwood's I Am a Camera).
She was born on April 10, 1909 in Saint Petersburg
, Russia
as Rosovskaya. She left to Switzerland
after the Russian Revolution and then Germany
, where she started acting in Hamburg
and in Vienna
, Austria
. She moved to France
after the rise of the Nazi party, and made it to the United States
by way of England
. In the U.S., she abbreviated her surname to Rostova.
Rostova had been taken in on a scholarship by Robert Lewis. She was cast as a fake witch doctor in Mexican Mural, an experimental play directed by Lewis, when she first met Clift, who also appeared in the play. Gradually, Rostova would play an increasing role in his acting career, discussing for hours the roles he should accept and the way he should act in these roles. Patricia Bosworth
, Clift's biographer, described how Rostova had been hired on the payroll as Clift's coach while he was starring in films including A Place in the Sun
and The Heiress
. She was a fixture in his dressing room by 1945, when Clift had a lead role in You Touched Me!, a play by Tennessee Williams
and Donald Windham
. Frustrated living at home with his mother, Rostova moved him into her apartment, while she moved out and found another place to live.
During the filming of Alfred Hitchcock
's 1953 film I Confess
, Rostova stood behind a pillar and Clift would look over for her approval. During the filming of the 1949 drama The Heiress
, co-star Olivia de Havilland
said that Clift would look in the opposite direction.
While other notable acting teachers such as Uta Hagen
and Lee Strasberg
would also act themselves, Rostova made few appearances of her own on stage or film, though she did perform the role of Nina in her own translation of Anton Chekhov
's The Seagull
, which she staged Off Broadway with Clift in 1954. Reviewer Brooks Atkinson
in The New York Times
called it an "interesting performance" of "an incomparably beautiful play", saying that "Rostova as Nina is handicapped by a heavy accent. She is further handicapped by a florid style alien to the whole spirit of Chekhov", though he called Clift's performance as Constantin "beautifully expressed without any foolish pathology".
Elia Kazan
kicked her off the set of the 1960 film Wild River
after a single day of filming. In Richard Schickel
's 2005 biography of Kazan, he describes how she positioned herself behind the director during filming and would nod or shake her head as Clift was acting, but Kazan was unwilling to have her as a co-director.
Rostova died at age 99 on January 28, 2009 in a Manhattan
nursing home. She did not have any immediate survivors.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
acting teacher, best known for her own variation of method acting
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
that she used in coaching of Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
. Her other acting students included Armand Assante
Armand Assante
-Personal life:Assante was born in New York City and raised in Cornwall, New York, the son of Katherine , a music teacher and poet, and Armand Anthony Assante, Sr., a painter and artist. His father was Italian and his mother was Irish, and was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic family...
, Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
, Peter Gallagher
Peter Gallagher
Peter Killian Gallagher is an American actor, musician and writer. Since 1980, Gallagher has played many roles in numerous Hollywood films. He starred as Sandy Cohen in the television drama series The O.C. from 2003 to 2007...
, Jessica Lange
Jessica Lange
Jessica Phyllis Lange is an American actress who has worked in film, theatre and television. The recipient of several awards, including two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes and one Emmy, Lange is regarded as one of the première female actors of her generation.Lange was discovered by producer...
, Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach
Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. As well, Orbach was a noted musical theatre star...
and Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
(who attended approximately half a dozen class sessions, working on scenes from Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke and Isherwood's I Am a Camera).
She was born on April 10, 1909 in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
as Rosovskaya. She left to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
after the Russian Revolution and then Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, where she started acting in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. She moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
after the rise of the Nazi party, and made it to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by way of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. In the U.S., she abbreviated her surname to Rostova.
Rostova had been taken in on a scholarship by Robert Lewis. She was cast as a fake witch doctor in Mexican Mural, an experimental play directed by Lewis, when she first met Clift, who also appeared in the play. Gradually, Rostova would play an increasing role in his acting career, discussing for hours the roles he should accept and the way he should act in these roles. Patricia Bosworth
Patricia Bosworth
Patricia Bosworth is an American journalist and biographer. A former faculty member of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, she has also been an editor, actress and model.-Early life and career:...
, Clift's biographer, described how Rostova had been hired on the payroll as Clift's coach while he was starring in films including A Place in the Sun
A Place in the Sun
A Place in the Sun is a 1951 American drama film based on the novel An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and the play, also titled An American Tragedy, which was adapted by Patrick Kearney from the novel. It tells the story of a working-class young man who is entangled with two women; one who...
and The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
. She was a fixture in his dressing room by 1945, when Clift had a lead role in You Touched Me!, a play by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
and Donald Windham
Donald Windham
Donald Windham was an American novelist and memoirist. He is perhaps best known for his close friendships with Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Windham moved with his then-boyfriend Fred Melton, an artist, to New York City in 1939. Windham collaborated with Williams...
. Frustrated living at home with his mother, Rostova moved him into her apartment, while she moved out and found another place to live.
During the filming of Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's 1953 film I Confess
I Confess (film)
I Confess is a drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Montgomery Clift as Fr. Michael William Logan, a Catholic priest, Anne Baxter as Ruth Grandfort, and Karl Malden as Inspector Larrue. This was the only film Hitchcock made with these three actors...
, Rostova stood behind a pillar and Clift would look over for her approval. During the filming of the 1949 drama The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
, co-star Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...
said that Clift would look in the opposite direction.
While other notable acting teachers such as Uta Hagen
Uta Hagen
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-born American actress and drama teacher. She originated the role of Martha in the 1963 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee...
and Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
would also act themselves, Rostova made few appearances of her own on stage or film, though she did perform the role of Nina in her own translation of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
, which she staged Off Broadway with Clift in 1954. Reviewer Brooks Atkinson
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theatre critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1925 to 1960...
in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called it an "interesting performance" of "an incomparably beautiful play", saying that "Rostova as Nina is handicapped by a heavy accent. She is further handicapped by a florid style alien to the whole spirit of Chekhov", though he called Clift's performance as Constantin "beautifully expressed without any foolish pathology".
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
kicked her off the set of the 1960 film Wild River
Wild River
Wild River is a 1960 film directed by Elia Kazan starring Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Salmi and Jay C. Flippen filmed on location in the Tennessee Valley...
after a single day of filming. In Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
's 2005 biography of Kazan, he describes how she positioned herself behind the director during filming and would nod or shake her head as Clift was acting, but Kazan was unwilling to have her as a co-director.
Rostova died at age 99 on January 28, 2009 in a Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
nursing home. She did not have any immediate survivors.