Doreen Cannon

Doreen Cannon (21 October 1930) was born and raised in New York City. She trained as an actress at the HB Studio in Manhattan for over 10 years with the famous Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof. Her contemporaries and fellow students were Peter Falk, Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Maureen Stapleton, Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller. She appeared in many plays off Broadway and in Summer Stock alongside such stars as Dorothy Lamour, Robert Alda, Alan Alda and Basil Rathbone. She married an English Property Developer David Cannon in NYC and came over to London in 1959. She was subsequently invited by George Devine to teach master workshops at The Royal Court Theatre.

She was instrumental in being one of the first practitioners to bring over the Stanislavski technique - method acting from the USA. Consequently, she was invited to be Head of Acting at Drama Centre London in 1963. This was the first "Method" school to open in the United Kingdom. She taught and directed there for 20 years and was responsible for training such actors as: Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Geraldine James, Frances de la Tour, Penelope Wilton and Simon Callow, who wrote about his training with Doreen in his book "Being an actor". She formed her own theatre company in the 1970s Theatre 84 which was one of the first fringe companies in London. She produced and directed premiers of European plays never before seen in England. In 1978 she was asked to head teaching acting for Adam Darius Mime School in London.

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