Andreas Voutsinas | |
---|---|
Born | 22 August 1930 Khartoum, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan |
Died | 8 June 2010 Athens, Greece |
(aged 79)
Occupation | Actor, theatre director |
Andréas Voutsinas (Greek: Ανδρέας Βουτσινάς; 22 August 1930 – 8 June 2010) was a Greek actor and theater director. In the English-speaking world, he was best known for his roles in three Mel Brooks films, The Producers (1968), The Twelve Chairs (1970) and History of the World, Part I (1981).
Voutsinas was born in Khartoum, Sudan on 22 August 1930 to parents from Farsa and Faraklata in Kefalonia, Greece. Voutsinas studied acting and costume design at the Old Vic School and drama and song at the Webber Douglas Academy in New York, and, in 1957, joined The Actors Studio.
Voutsinas directed more than 130 performances of classical and contemporary repertoire in London, Paris, New York, Canada and Greece. He worked as an actor and director on Broadway and acted in films by Jules Dassin and Luc Besson.
Voutsinas, a life member of The Actor's Studio since 1957, spent many years working in theater and as an assistant to Studio co-founder Elia Kazan, before he met Jane Fonda, with whom he got involved and whom he cast in the leading part in Fun Couple, his Broadway directorial debut in 1960.
Voutsinas later followed Fonda to Hollywood where he coached her in a number of movies. He then started working as a coach for many others, including Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Following Fonda to Paris to coach her in Roger Vadim's Barbarella (the two were not a couple anymore), he decided to found Le Theatre Des Cinquante, an acting workshop based on the principles of Lee Strasberg. Many famous French actors and actresses started attending his classes, and at the same time he successfully began directing plays for the French theater.