'Life and Acting' Book Launches at The Drama Book Shop, 3/18, 20-21

Jack Garfein, theater-film director and acting teacher, has written a book, LIFE and ACTING: Techniques for the Actor (Northwestern University Press). Mr. Garfein is one of the last living links to the Golden Age of The Actors Studio. Required reading for anyone interested in theatre, the book is being launched with a signing at The Drama Book Shop this Friday, March 18th, 5:30-7:00 pm.

On Sunday, March 20th and Monday, March 21st Mr. Garfein will receive a
Tribute at Film Forum. On Sunday, March 20th at 3:15 he will appear following a
screening of A JOURNEY BACK (1987), a documentary chronicling Mr. Garfein's
return to his hometown of Bardejov, Slovakia and to Auschwitz - and a 40-year-
later meeting with the man responsible for his family's deportation. Following the
screening, Annette Insdorf, Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia
University, and the author of Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust, will
moderate a conversation and Q&A with Mr. Garfein.

On Monday, March 21, the two feature films directed by Mr. Garfein will be
shown: THE STRANGE ONE (1959), his controversial adaptation of the Calder
Willingham play End as a Man (1957), with most of the original Actors Studio
cast, including Ben Gazzara and George Peppard, both making their film debuts,
and SOMETHING WILD (1961), with Mr. Garfein's then-wife Carroll Baker as a
college girl who's brutally raped, then held captive by off-center mechanic Ralph
Meeker. SOMETHING WILD features a rare score by Aaron Copland and moody
black& white cinematography by the great Eugene Schüfftan.

The Strange One will be shown at 6:30; following the screening, film historian
Foster Hirsch will interview Mr. Garfein about his life and professional career.
Mr. Garfein will also introduce the 9:15 screening of Something Wild.

Earlier this week Mr. Garfein spoke at The Actors Studio about his early days
at the Studio with Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan. Introduced at the Studio by
Patricia Bosworth, she remembered meeting Mr. Garfein for the first time as she
auditioned for admission. Through a series of roles-from streetwalker to 40-
year-old divorcee, Mr. Garfein helped to guide the teenage Bosworth to the role
of Emily in OUR TOWN for her winning audition.

A protégé of Erwin Piscator, Mr. Garfein was the first director voted in to the
Studio. By 23, he had directed his first Broadway play which was developed at
The Actors Studio. A founder of The Actors Studio West, Actors and Directors Lab
(NY/LA), he created both the Harold Clurman and Samuel Beckett Theaters on
Theater Row

Based in Paris, where he teaches at the Garfein Studio, he also gives Master
Classes at the University of the Arts London, and The Actors Studio NY and
LA. Mr. Garfein has lectured at Harvard, UCLA and NYU and the University of
Southern California, where he was an Associate Professor of Cinema.
Among the actors who have gotten their professional starts from Mr. Garfein
are: Steve McQueen, George Peppard, Bruce Dern; and others whom he has
directed include: James Dean, Uta Hagen, Shelley Winters, Susan Strasberg,
Pat Hingle and Jessica Tandy.

Among his students, are the actresses Sissy Spacek and Juliette Binoche;
directors and screenwriters include: Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), Tom Shulman
(Dead Poets Society) and director Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams with
Kevin Costner).

For book information, contact Rudy Faust: r-faust@northwestern.edu

 

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