The Group Theatre was a theater collective based in New York City and formed in 1931 by Harold Clurman , Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg . It was intended as a base for the kind of theatre they and their colleagues believed in—a forceful, naturalistic and highly disciplined artistry. They were pioneers of what would become an "American acting technique", derived from the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski , but pushed beyond them as well. The company included actors, directors, playwrights, and producers. The name "Group" came from the idea of the actors as a pure ensemble ; a reference to the company as "our group" led them to "accept the inevitable and call their company The Group Theatre."
60-683: John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle ; March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of the Group Theatre . In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros. ' stars. He received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Four Daughters (1938) and Body and Soul (1947). Called to testify before
120-462: A Clifford Odets play, The Big Knife . "I have nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of. My life is an open book. I am no Red. I am no 'pink.' I am no fellow traveler. I am a Democrat by politics, a liberal by inclination, and a loyal citizen of this country by every act of my life." —from his statement read before the HUAC Long involved in liberal politics, Garfield was caught up in
180-567: A boxer", and more specifically John Garfield as he appeared in Body and Soul . The protagonist in Thomas Pynchon 's novel Inherent Vice , Larry "Doc" Sportello, discusses Garfield's film appearances throughout the detective story. The John Prine song "The Late John Garfield Blues" is inspired by Garfield. The actor is also mentioned by Prine in "Picture Show", a song in the musician's Grammy Award-winning album The Missing Years . In
240-435: A cinematic impact difficult to conceive in retrospect. As biographer Lawrence Swindell put it: Garfield's work was spontaneous, non-actory; it had abandon. He didn't recite dialogue, he attacked it until it lost the quality of talk and took on the nature of speech ... Like Cagney , he was an exceptionally mobile performer from the start of his screen career. These traits were orchestrated with his physical appearance to create
300-415: A film called Taxi but would not even begin talks unless the investigation concluded in his favor. Three actor friends, Canada Lee , Mady Christians and J. Edward Bromberg , had all recently died after being listed by the committee. On the morning of May 20, Garfield, against his doctor's strict orders, played several strenuous sets of tennis with a friend, mentioning the fact that he had not been to bed
360-434: A high-brow audience. Its productions included well-known works by William Shakespeare , Henrik Ibsen , and Anton Chekhov , but also included well-regarded instantiations of modern and avant-garde works such as Jean-Jacques Bernard 's Martine and Arthur Schnitzler 's The Bridal Veil . Talent scouts for radio and film attended the school's performances. In 1929, Maria Germanova succeeded Boleslavsky as director of
420-518: A lot of school. After he was expelled three times and expressed a wish to quit school altogether, his father and stepmother sent him to P.S. 45, a school for difficult children. It was under the guidance of the school's principal—the educator Angelo Patri —that he was introduced to acting. Noticing Garfield's tendency to stammer, Patri assigned him to a speech therapy class taught by a charismatic teacher named Margaret O'Ryan. She gave him acting exercises and made him memorize and deliver speeches in front of
480-418: A name-above-the-title vehicle for him titled They Made Me a Criminal (1939). Before the success of Daughters , Garfield had made a B movie feature called Blackwell's Island (also 1939). Not wanting their new star to appear in a low-budget film, Warners ordered an A movie upgrade by adding $ 100,000 to its budget and recalling director Michael Curtiz to shoot newly scripted scenes. Garfield's debut had
540-536: A new theater collective, calling it simply " the Group ", and Garfield lobbied his friends hard to get in. After months of rejection, he began frequenting the inside steps of the Broadhurst Theater where the Group had its offices. Cheryl Crawford noticed him one day and greeted him warmly. Feeling encouraged, he made his request for apprenticeship. Something intangible impressed her, and she recommended him to
600-561: A particular star's strengths and worked to capitalize on those strengths in terms of finding vehicles that would appeal to the public—and hence make the studio money. The forces that prevented him from getting high quality roles were really the result of the combined willpower of the Warner Bros., the studio system in general, and the general public, which also had its own perception of how Garfield (or Cagney or Bogart for that matter) should appear on screen. A notable exception to this trend
660-480: A result, were blacklisted . Elia Kazan would later state he abandoned his Communist views in part because of an agenda to transform the Group Theatre into a company devoted to promoting "Marxist ideology." Odets would share similar concerns after experiencing pressure from the party to change the direction of his writing. Mark Kemble's play Names covers the relationship between HUAC and the former members of
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#1732791593474720-480: A screen persona innately powerful in the sexual sense. What Warners saw immediately was that Garfield's impact was felt by both sexes. This was almost unique. His "honeymoon" with Warners over, Garfield entered a protracted period of conflict with the studio, with Warners attempting to cast him in crowd-pleasing melodramas like Dust Be My Destiny (also 1939) and Garfield insisting on quality scripts that would offer challenges and highlight his versatility. The result
780-459: A standard feature-player agreement—seven years with options—in Warner's New York office. Many in the Group were livid over what they considered his betrayal. Elia Kazan 's reaction was different, suggesting that the Group did not so much fear that Garfield would fail, but that he would succeed. Jack Warner 's first order of business was a change of name to John Garfield. After many false starts, he
840-472: A time. After the war, Garfield starred in a series of successful films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) with Lana Turner , Humoresque (also 1946) with Joan Crawford , and Gentleman's Agreement (1947), an Oscar-winning Best Picture. In Gentleman's Agreement , Garfield took a featured, but supporting, part because he believed deeply in the film's exposé of antisemitism in America. He
900-802: The House Un-American Activities Committee . Group Theatre (New York) The New York–based Group Theatre had no connection with the identically named Group Theatre based in London and founded in 1932. In the ten years of its existence, the Group Theatre produced works by many important American playwrights , including Clifford Odets , Sidney Kingsley , Paul Green , Robert Ardrey , and Irwin Shaw . Its most notable productions included Success Story starring Stella Adler and Luther Adler , Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing , Waiting for Lefty , Paradise Lost , and
960-701: The Moscow Art Theatre , they were the first proponents of Konstantin Stanislavski 's 'system' in the United States, which soon developed into what came to be known as " the Method ". Garfield took morning classes and began volunteering time at the Lab after hours, auditing rehearsals, building and painting scenery, and doing crew work. He would later view this time as beginning his apprenticeship in
1020-692: The communist scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He supported the Committee for the First Amendment , which opposed governmental investigation of communist activity in Hollywood. When called to testify in 1951 before the House Committee on Un-American Activities , which was empowered to investigate communist infiltration in America, Garfield refused to name Communist Party members or followers, testifying that, indeed, he knew none in
1080-766: The 1937–38 Broadway hit Golden Boy , starring Luther Adler and Frances Farmer . The Group Theatre included Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Cheryl Crawford, Stella Adler (a founding member), Morris Carnovsky , Clifford Odets , Sanford Meisner , Elia Kazan , Harry Morgan (billed as Harry Bratsburg), Robert Lewis , John Garfield (billed as Jules Garfield), Canada Lee , Franchot Tone , Frances Farmer , Phoebe Brand , Ruth Nelson , Will Geer , Howard da Silva , Sidney Lumet , John Randolph , Joseph Bromberg , Michael Gordon , Paul Green , Marc Blitzstein , Paul Strand , Anna Sokolow , Lee J. Cobb , Roman Bohnen , Jay Adler , Luther Adler, Robert Ardrey , Don Richardson and many others. The Group Theatre's first production
1140-529: The American theater landscape for many years to come, the group ended by 1941, and factors included the impending war, the lure of fame and fortune in Hollywood, the lack of institutional funding, and the friction of interpersonal relationships. After the war, in 1947, Robert Lewis, Elia Kazan, and Cheryl Crawford founded the Actors Studio , where the techniques inspired by Stanislavski and developed in
1200-520: The FBI to press his case. At the meeting, however, the FBI representatives showed him a dossier on his wife Robbe, which included her old Communist Party membership card and cancelled checks to events sponsored by the party, and said that the FBI would clear him if he signed a statement betraying Robbe as a Communist. Garfield instead responded with an angry expletive and walked out of the meeting. On May 9, 1952, Garfield moved out of his New York apartment for
1260-654: The Group Theatre were refined. Under the leadership of Lee Strasberg, who later joined the Actors Studio and became its director in 1951, what is now referred to as The Method emerged as a lasting force in modern drama. Institutionally, the Group Theatre influenced the Chelsea Theater Center , a later theater in New York (1960s and 1970s), born of idealism and destroyed by lack of funding and friction between its co-directors. Harold Prince invokes
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#17327915934741320-568: The Group Theatre. Notes Further reading American Laboratory Theatre The American Laboratory Theatre was an American drama school and theatrical company located in New York City that existed during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a publicly subsidized, student-subscription organization that held fund-raising campaigns to support itself. The school itself was known as the Theatre Arts Institute . It
1380-666: The HUAC closed its investigation of John Garfield, leaving him in the clear. Garfield was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson , Westchester County , New York. He and Roberta Seidman married in February 1935. His wife had been a member of the Communist Party. They had three children: Katherine (1938 – March 18, 1945), who died of an allergic reaction; David (1943–1994); and Julie (born 1946),
1440-659: The Stanislavskian aesthetic. The following year, the group produced the Paul Green- Kurt Weill anti-war musical Johnny Johnson , directed by Strasberg. The Group Theatre's most successful production was the 1937–38 Broadway hit Golden Boy . Elia Kazan directed Robert Ardrey 's plays Casey Jones and Thunder Rock in 1938 and 1939–40 for the Group Theatre. The group gathered at different summer locations to rehearse and train intensively for six of its 10 years in existence. The group spent
1500-423: The U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities ( HUAC ), he denied communist affiliation and refused to "name names", effectively ending his film career. Some have alleged that the stress of this persecution led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method actors as Marlon Brando , Montgomery Clift , and James Dean . Jacob Garfinkle
1560-503: The U.S. Northwest, ( Preston Sturges conceived the film Sullivan's Travels after hearing Garfield tell of his hobo adventures), Garfield made his Broadway debut in 1932 in a play called Lost Boy . It ran for only two weeks but gave Garfield something critically important for an actor struggling to break into the theater: a credit. There is a claim that he was a patron of Polly Adler 's bordello or brothel in New York. Garfield received feature billing in his next role, that of Henry
1620-465: The class and, as he progressed, in front of school assemblies. O'Ryan thought he had a natural talent and cast him in school plays. She encouraged him to sign up for a citywide debating competition sponsored by The New York Times . To his own surprise, he took second prize. With Patri and O'Ryan's encouragement, he began to take acting lessons at a drama school that was part of The Heckscher Foundation and began to appear in their productions. At one of
1680-471: The film Hustle (1975), Burt Reynolds' character references Garfield during a discussion of screen heroes. In the film Indecent Proposal (1993), when discussing the contract for one night with his wife, there is a "John Garfield" clause in the contract stating he pays even if he dies during the event. Garfield is a character in Names , Mark Kemble's play about former Group Theatre members' struggles with
1740-576: The film industry. Garfield rejected communism and, just prior to his death in hopes of redeeming himself in the eyes of the blacklisters, wrote that he had been duped by communist ideology in an unpublished article called "I Was a Sucker for a Left Hook", a reference to Garfield's movies about boxing. However, his forced testimony before the committee had severely damaged his reputation. He was blacklisted in Red Channels and barred from future employment as an actor by Hollywood movie studio bosses for
1800-608: The first full season (1933–34), Men in White , written by Sidney Kingsley , directed by Lee Strasberg and produced by Sidney Harmon , became a financial success for the group. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama . On the night of January 5, 1935, some members of the group participated in a benefit performance for the New Theatre Magazine . Written by Clifford Odets and directed by Odets and Sanford Meisner,
1860-473: The group in his foreword to the book Chelsea on the Edge: The Adventures of an American Theater . In the 1950s, many of the former members were called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Those who appeared as friendly witnesses, such as Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, and Lee J. Cobb, avoided the fate of their colleagues who refused to name Communist Party members and, as
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1920-504: The last time, indicating to friends that the separation from his wife Roberta was not temporary. He confided to columnist Earl Wilson that he would soon be divorced. Close friends speculated that it was his wife's opposition to his planned confession in Look magazine that triggered the separation. He heard that a HUAC investigator was reviewing his testimony for possible perjury charges. His agent reported that 20th Century-Fox wanted him for
1980-687: The latter two later becoming actors themselves. His widow Roberta married motion picture and labor lawyer Sidney Cohn in 1954, who died in 1991; Roberta died in a Los Angeles nursing home in 2004. At the time of her death, Julie Garfield told the Los Angeles Times that her mother was embittered over Garfield's treatment by studio executives, who she believed, "had used Garfield as a scapegoat to take attention from others in Hollywood because he had 'formed his own production company and they felt threatened by him. ' " In The Exorcist (1973), Detective Kinderman says Father Damien Karras "looks like
2040-600: The latter, he received back-stage congratulations and an offer of support from the Yiddish actor Jacob Ben-Ami , who recommended him to the American Laboratory Theatre . Funded by the Theatre Guild , "the Lab" had contracted with Richard Boleslavski to stage its experimental productions and with Russian actress and expatriate Maria Ouspenskaya to supervise classes in acting. Former members of
2100-411: The leading promulgators of Stanislavski's ideas in America. Some five hundred students were trained at the school during its years of existence. These included Lee Strasberg , Harold Clurman , and Stella Adler , all of whom would go on to exert a great influence on American acting. Future critic Francis Fergusson was also a student. Lenore LaFount started an acting career after her time at
2160-541: The majority of the positive reviews. The group took on novelist Dawn Powell 's dark comedy Big Night , rehearsed it for six months and asked for extensive revisions from the playwright. The result was a critical and box-office disaster that ran a scant nine performances. Harold Clurman, who took over the production late in the rehearsal period, later admitted the group's role in the fiasco. "The play should have been done in four swift weeks—or not at all. We worried it and harried our actors with it for months." Later, during
2220-483: The night before. He met actress Iris Whitney for dinner and afterward became ill, complaining that he felt chilled. She took him to her apartment, where he refused to let her call a doctor and instead went to bed. The next morning, she found him dead. Long-term heart problems, allegedly aggravated by the stress of his blacklisting, had led to his death at the age of 39. The funeral was the largest in New York since Rudolph Valentino 's, with over ten thousand people crowding
2280-590: The office boy in Elmer Rice 's play Counsellor-at-Law , starring Paul Muni . The play ran for three months, made an Eastern tour and returned for an unprecedented second, repeat engagement, only closing when Muni was contractually compelled to go back to Hollywood to make a film for Warners. At this point, Warner's expressed an interest in Garfield and sought a screen test . He turned them down. Garfield's former colleagues Crawford, Clurman and Strasberg had begun
2340-563: The one-act play Waiting for Lefty was performed at the Civic Repertory Theatre in New York City and became a theatrical legend. The play reflects a kind of street poetry that brought great acclaim to the group and to Odets as the new voice of social drama in the 1930s. Odets became the playwright most strongly identified with the group, and its productions of Awake and Sing! and Paradise Lost , both directed in 1935 by Harold Clurman, proved to be excellent vehicles for
2400-479: The onset of World War II , Garfield immediately attempted to enlist in the armed forces, but was turned down because of his heart condition. Frustrated, he turned his energies to supporting the war effort. He and actress Bette Davis were the driving forces behind the opening of the Hollywood Canteen , a club offering food and entertainment for American servicemen . He traveled overseas to help entertain
2460-528: The other directors. They made no objection. Clifford Odets had been a close friend of Garfield from the early days in the Bronx. After Odets' one-act play Waiting for Lefty became a surprise hit, the Group announced it would mount a production of his full-length drama Awake and Sing . At the playwright's insistence, Garfield was cast as Ralph, the sensitive young son who pleads for "a chance to get to first base". The play opened in February 1935, and Garfield
John Garfield - Misplaced Pages Continue
2520-547: The remainder of his career. With film work scarce because of the blacklist, Garfield returned to Broadway and starred in a 1952 revival of Golden Boy , finally being cast in the lead role denied him years before. Near the end of his life, in an effort to clear his name, Garfield began work on an article for Look magazine , in which he would denounce communism without "naming names"; his lawyer advised him to concede that he had been “duped" into contributing time and money to communist front groups . He then arranged to meet with
2580-415: The school, but would soon marry George W. Romney and later become First Lady of Michigan and a political candidate in her own right (and the mother of businessman and politician Mitt Romney ). The school gave theatrical productions from 1925 to 1930. Richard Aldrich served as general manager for these productions before becoming a successful producer on Broadway. Relatively small in size, it aimed for
2640-409: The streets outside. The media circus surrounding Garfield's death led to a running joke, "John Garfield Still Dead Syndrome", that parodied the phenomenon; it would later be superseded by " Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead " in the 1970s after Francisco Franco 's protracted terminal illness. Garfield's estate, valued at "more than $ 100,000", was left entirely to his wife. Shortly afterward,
2700-672: The summer of 1931 at Brookfield Center, 1936 at Pine Brook Country Club , located near Nichols, Connecticut . Other summer venues included Brookfield Center, Connecticut (1931); Dover Furnace in Dutchess County, New York (1932); Green Mansions in Warrensburg, New York in 1933; a large house in Ellenville, New York (1934); and Lake Grove in Smithtown, New York in 1939. Despite its success and sweeping impact on
2760-525: The theater. Among the people becoming disenchanted with the Guild and turning to the Lab for a more radical, challenging environment were Stella Adler , Lee Strasberg , Franchot Tone , Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman . In varying degrees, all would become influential in Garfield's later career. After a stint with Eva Le Gallienne 's Civic Repertory Theater and a short period of vagrancy, involving hitchhiking, freight hopping, picking fruit, and logging in
2820-560: The troops, made several bond selling tours and starred in a string of patriotic box-office successes like Air Force , Destination Tokyo (both 1943) and Pride of the Marines (1945). He was particularly proud of the last film, based on the life of Al Schmid , a war hero blinded in combat. In preparing for the role, Garfield lived for several weeks with Schmid and his wife in Philadelphia and would blindfold himself for hours at
2880-434: The way it was in poor sections ... the old safety in numbers." He soon became a gang leader. At this time, people started to notice his ability to mimic well-known performers, both physically and facially. He also began to hang out and eventually spar at a boxing gym on Jerome Avenue . At some point, he contracted scarlet fever (it was diagnosed later in adulthood), causing permanent damage to his heart and causing him to miss
2940-404: Was Daughters Courageous (also 1939), a not-quite-sequel (same cast, different story and characters) to his debut film. The film did well critically, but failed to find an audience, the public being dissatisfied that it was not a true sequel (hard to pull off, since the original character Mickey Borden died in the first picture). The director, Curtiz, called the film "my obscure masterpiece". At
3000-561: Was Paul Green 's The House of Connelly on September 23, 1931, at the Martin Beck Theatre . The company asked the Theatre Guild to help cover the $ 5,000 cost to perform. The Theatre Guild offered to pay the full amount if the group "removed Mary Morris and Morris Carnovsky from the cast and restored the tragic ending" from the more upbeat and hopeful rewrite Green produced. The group refused and instead raised half on its own, receiving support from Eugene O'Neill. The play
3060-401: Was an immediate critical success and was recognized for the special ensemble performances which the group would develop. The group's production of John Howard Lawson 's Success Story , which chronicled the rise of a youthful idealist who sacrifices his principles as he rises to the top of the advertising business, received very mixed reviews, with Luther Adler and Stella Adler receiving
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#17327915934743120-611: Was born in a small apartment on Rivington Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side , to David and Hannah Garfinkle, Russian Jewish immigrants, and grew up in the heart of the Yiddish Theater District . In early infancy, a middle name—Julius—was added, and for the rest of his life those who knew him well called him Julie. His father, a clothes presser and part-time cantor , struggled to make a living and to provide even marginal comfort for his small family. When Garfield
3180-430: Was cast in the lead role instead, a disillusioned Garfield began to take a second look at the overtures being made by Hollywood . Garfield had been approached by Hollywood studios before—both Paramount and Warners offering screen tests—but talks had always stalled over a clause he wanted inserted in his contract, one that would allow him time off for stage work. Now Warner Bros. acceded to his demand, and Garfield signed
3240-486: Was finally cast in a supporting, yet crucial role as a tragic young composer in a Michael Curtiz film titled Four Daughters (1938). After the picture's release, he received very positive notices and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor . The studio quickly revised Garfield's contract—designating him a star player rather than a featured one—for seven years without options. They also created
3300-475: Was five, his brother Max was born. Their mother never fully recovered from what was described as a "difficult" pregnancy and birth. She died two years later, and the young boys were sent to live with various relatives, all poor, scattered across the boroughs of Brooklyn , Queens and The Bronx . Several of these relatives lived in tenements in a section of East Brooklyn called Brownsville , and there, Garfield lived in one house and slept in another. At school, he
3360-498: Was founded in 1923 by former Moscow Art Theatre members Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya and stressed Stanislavski's system as its teaching method. Students were taught to be uninhibited, with exercises such as acting as a fish under water, a melting ice cream cone, or (for women) the mother of a sick child praying to the Madonna. Both actors and directors were trained, and Boleslavsky and Ouspenskaya became known as
3420-535: Was judged a poor reader and speller, deficits that were aggravated by irregular attendance. He would later say of his time on the streets there, that he learned "all the meanness, all the toughness it's possible for kids to acquire." "If I hadn't become an actor, I might have become Public Enemy Number One ." His father remarried and moved to the West Bronx , where Garfield joined a series of gangs. Much later, he would recall: "Every street had its own gang. That's
3480-539: Was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring role in Body and Soul (1947). That same year, Garfield returned to Broadway in the play Skipper Next to God . Strong-willed and often verbally combative, Garfield did not hesitate to venture out on his own when the opportunity arose. In 1946, when his contract with Warner Bros. expired, Garfield decided not to renew it and opted to start his own independent production company. In 1949, he would again star in
3540-406: Was often a series of suspensions, with Garfield refusing an assigned role and Warners refusing to pay him. Garfield's problem was shared by any actor working in the studio system of the 1930s: by contract, the studio had the right to cast him in any project they wanted to. But, as Robert Nott explains: To be fair, most of the studios had a team of producers, directors, and writers who could pinpoint
3600-401: Was singled out by critic Brooks Atkinson for having a "splendid sense of character development". Garfield's apprenticeship was officially over; he was voted full membership by the company. Odets was the man of the moment, and he claimed to the press that Garfield was his "find" and that he would soon write a play just for him. That play would turn out to be Golden Boy , but when Luther Adler
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