James Lipton was born on September 19th, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. He is best known for his writing, acting, and composing works. He is the dean of the NYC's Actors Studio Drama School and has his own show, Inside the Actors Studio. His father was quite famous as a columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward, and he was allegedly had an influence on the young James, as he was a publicity director for a local movie theater; Lipton's mother Betty Weinberg was a teacher.
Lipton had a natural talent at acting. However, as he often looked down on his father, who ruined the family life with his often anarchistic lifestyle, James did all he could to avoid his father's path and chose to become a lawyer, and turned to acting only for financing his studies. After James finally decided to pursue acting, he went to New York City and studied for twelve years; his mentor was no one other than Stella Adler, who has taught grands such as Marlon Brando and Robert de Niro.
Lipton first appeared on Broadway in The Autumn Garden, and in the subsequent years acted in numerous soap operas that were broadcast on the still newborn television. In 1954, he married to Nina Foch, an American actress of Dutch descent. In 1956, Lipton wrote the script for The Edge of Night, and periodically wrote the script for many TV and Broadway dramas, including the 1962 Broadway gem Nowhere to Go But Up. He was also a producer for some Broadway plays, such as The Mighty Gents, Monteith & Rand, etc. Fond of writing, in the late '60s Lipton wrote a book on the linguistic term, noun of multitude, there are now over 1,100 examples of multitude nouns in the book.
On August 14, 1994, Lipton had the biggest breakthrough up to date. August 14 was the date when Inside the Actors Studio first aired. The first guest of the one-on-one talk show was Paul Newman, whom Lipton knew before, as Newman was the Actors Studio president. The show consists of long interviews with accomplished actors and directors, and after the interview, they answer questions from drama students. The show is reportedly being viewed by over 89m viewers each week as of now; Inside the Actors Studio reaches people through cable television. Inside the Actors Studio has had widely known guests such as Angelina Jolie, Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks, Liza Minelly, etc, appear on the show.
James Lipton is a clearly multi-talented person and an accomplished artists. He has written stories for numerous magazines, including The New York Times and The Paris Review; furthermore, he is the author of the 1983 novel Mirrors, the book focuses on dancers and their lives. James Lipton has also published poetry works. Aside from literature, Lipton is also an avid pilot--he's an active member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He continues to be the host of Inside the Actors Studio up to this day and we can indeed expect innovative future projects from this talented individual.
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