Elia Kazan

Directing

Born 1909-09-07 Died 2003-09-28 Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey] 60 credits Academy Awards 2 Golden Globe Awards 2 Directors Guild of America 1 Tony Awards 3 Donaldson Awards 1 Kennedy Center Honors 1 National Board of Review Award for Best Film 1 star on Hollywood Walk of Fame 1

Awards

Won 2 Academy Awards

Academy Awards 2 won · 5 nominated

1964 Best Picture Nominated America America
1964 Best Writing, Original Screenplay Nominated America America
1964 Best Director Nominated America America
1956 Best Director Nominated East of Eden
1955 Best Director Won On the Waterfront
1952 Best Director Nominated A Streetcar Named Desire
1948 Best Director Won Gentleman's Agreement

Golden Globe Awards 2 won

1956 Best Motion Picture – Drama Won East of Eden
1955 Best Motion Picture – Drama Won East of Eden

Directors Guild of America 1 won

— Award Won

Tony Awards 3 won · 3 nominated

1960 Best Direction of a Play Nominated
1959 Best Director Won
1958 Best Director Nominated
1956 Best Director Nominated
1949 Best Director Won
1947 Best Director Won

Donaldson Awards 1 won

— Donaldson Awards Won

Kennedy Center Honors 1 won

— Kennedy Center Honors Won

National Board of Review Award for Best Film 1 won

— Best Film Won

star on Hollywood Walk of Fame 1 won

— star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Won

Award data from Wikidata (CC0). Coverage may be incomplete.

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Elia Kazan ( September 7 , 1909, Kayseri – September 28, 2003) was a Greek-American director and actor, described as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". He also produced, and wrote screenplays and novels. Born in the Kayseri, Ottoman Empire to Greek parents, they emigrated to New York when he was four. After two years studying acting at Yale, he acted professionally for eight years before becoming a stage and film director. Kazan co-founded the influential Group Theater in 1932 and Actors Studio in 1947, and together with Lee Strasberg, introduced Method acting to the American stage and cinema as a new form of self-expression and psychological "realism". Having been an actor himself for eight years, he brought sensitivity and understanding of the acting process, and was later considered the ideal "actor's director". He himself acted in only a few films, including City for Conquest (1940), alongside James Cagney. Overall, Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 1960s by his run of provocative, issues-driven subjects, and acting. Moreover, his personal brand of cinema, employing real locations over sets, unknowns over stars, and realism over convenient genres, proved influential to a whole generation of independent filmmakers in the 1960s. Film author Ian Freer concludes that "If his achievements are tainted by political controversy, the debt Hollywood — and actors everywhere — owes him, is enormous." In 2010, Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film, A Letter to Elia, as a personal tribute to Kazan, who he credits as the inspiration for his becoming a filmmaker.