Milton Katselas
| Milton George Katselas | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 22, 1933 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Died |
(aged 74) Los Angeles, California |
| Cause of death | Heart failure |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Director, acting instructor, coach, producer |
Milton George Katsalas (December 22, 1933 – October 24, 2008) was an American director and producer of stage and film, as well as a famous Hollywood acting instructor and coach who trained under Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg at the acclaimed Actors Studio in New York City. In 1978 he acquired the Beverly Hills Playhouse, where he taught an exclusive master class for many years.
Katselas was a Scientologist and his acting classes were alleged by some students to have been used as recruitment for the Church of Scientology, while others have stated Katselas never mentioned or spoke about Scientology during classes.
Katselas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Greek immigrant parents, who owned a small restaurant outside the gates of a Westinghouse Electric plant. When Milton was 14 years old, his father went into the movie theater business and ran a local theater company of Greek actors. Milton Katsalas later adjusted his surname to Katselas.
After high school, he set off for Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) to study theater. On a visit to New York, he sneaked in to watch Lee Strasberg's acting class where he also saw renowned director Elia Kazan on the street and chased him down. "I talked to him in Greek, and he talked with me"... [H]e told me, `When you finish college, come see me.'", Katselas recalled. Following graduation in 1954, he began studying with Strasberg and serving as an apprentice to Kazan.
...
Wikipedia