59 Fun Facts About Elia Kazan

In which city was Elia Kazan born in 1909?

Constantinople, now Istanbul, was only his first home: his father went ahead to New York and sent for the family, who followed shortly before the First World War.

Kazan's family belonged to which ethnic community of Anatolia?

Greek: his parents were Anatolian Greeks living under Ottoman rule, and he traced to that past the guarded 'Anatolian smile' he disliked in his father, 'the smile that covers resentment'.

Which 1951 Kazan film of a Pulitzer-winning Southern Gothic play made Marlon Brando a star?

A Streetcar Named Desire became the first film to win three acting Oscars, yet Brando, who had played Stanley for Kazan on Broadway, was its one acting nominee to lose.

Which actor made his starring debut in Kazan's 1955 film "East of Eden"?

James Dean was killed in a car crash six months after its release, making this the only one of his three starring films to come out in his lifetime.

Which 1954 Kazan film about corruption in a longshoremen's union won eight Oscars?

On the Waterfront has a hero who testifies against his own union bosses, and many critics read it as Kazan justifying his decision to name names; he said he was speaking for the underdog.

Kazan won his first Best Director Oscar for which 1947 film about antisemitism, starring Gregory Peck?

Gentleman's Agreement casts Peck as a reporter who poses as Jewish to expose polite prejudice from the inside; it won Best Picture as well as the directing prize.

Which New York workshop, later the home of the Method, did Kazan co-found in 1947?

The Actors Studio began with Cheryl Crawford and Robert Lewis as his partners, and its training went on to reshape American screen acting, often in his own films.

Before which congressional body did Kazan give the 1952 testimony that shadowed his later life?

The House Un-American Activities Committee heard him twice in 1952: first he refused to name anyone, then, warned his film career was at stake, he named eight former stage colleagues.

What is the title of Kazan's 1988 autobiography?

A Life defends his 1952 testimony at length yet admits doubt: what he had done was correct, he wrote, but was it right?

Which actor debuted as drifter "Lonesome" Rhodes in Kazan's 1957 satire "A Face in the Crowd"?

Andy Griffith, later TV's gentle Sheriff Andy Taylor, made his film debut as a folksy drifter turned demagogue; Kazan meant the film as a warning about television's power in politics.

Which actor's film debut came opposite Natalie Wood in Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass" (1961)?

Warren Beatty challenged Kazan in the first week of shooting about naming names; the director pulled him into a dressing room and justified himself for two hours.

Kazan's testimony cost him the friendship of which playwright, whose 1949 play he had directed?

Arthur Miller refused to name names when his own turn came, and the two were estranged for a decade before Kazan staged his 'After the Fall' in 1964.

Which actor, the star of Kazan's final film, helped present his controversial Honorary Oscar in 1999?

Robert De Niro shared the stage with a director friend; part of the audience stood to applaud while others, among them Nick Nolte and Ed Harris, stayed seated and did not clap.

In which city in New Jersey did Kazan shoot the 1954 film that won Marlon Brando an Oscar as Terry Malloy?

Hoboken was Frank Sinatra's home town, and he had a handshake deal to play the lead until Brando, who had first turned it down, changed his mind.

Which composer wrote his only original film score for Kazan's 1954 longshoremen drama?

Leonard Bernstein was nominated for the Oscar but lost to Dimitri Tiomkin, one of the few defeats for the film on a night when it won eight awards.

Which college nickname did Kazan keep for life, earned, he said, by being small, compact and handy to have around?

Gadg, short for Gadget, was taken up by his stars, Brando among them, but Kazan grew to despise it; a friend told him it suited a man useful to everyone except himself.

Where did Kazan study for two years before moving to New York in 1932?

Yale School of Drama came after Williams College, where he waited tables to pay his way and felt shut out by wealthier classmates; that outsider's anger, he said, drove him for life.

Kazan's first professional home was which socially committed 1930s New York company?

The Group Theatre treated the stage as a collective art; Kazan later decided it had been wrong, and that a production should express one person's vision.

Kazan made his name as an actor playing a strike-leading taxi driver in which 1935 Clifford Odets play?

Waiting for Lefty is staged as a cab drivers' union meeting with the audience as its members; critics called Kazan 'dynamic', though he had been told early on that he had no talent for acting.

Which 1942 Thornton Wilder play starring Tallulah Bankhead gave Kazan his first big Broadway success?

The Skin of Our Teeth was a battle as well as a hit: Bankhead clashed with her director, and Kazan later wrote that she was one of only two people he ever hated.

Kazan's first feature film, released in 1945, was an adaptation of which Betty Smith novel?

He had made two short films first; the feature began his habit of choosing dramas about contemporary social concerns.

Kazan's 1949 film "Pinky" drew controversy for casting which actress as a Black woman passing for white?

Jeanne Crain earned an Oscar nomination; Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge had both wanted the part, and Kazan, brought in after John Ford left, thought her miscast.

Kazan's 1950 thriller 'Panic in the Streets', shot in New Orleans, is a race to stop an outbreak of what?

Pneumonic plague is carried by a murdered man, giving a health officer 48 hours to find his killers before it spreads; Jack Palance made his film debut as one of them.

Who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Zapata's brother Eufemio in Kazan's 1952 biopic?

Anthony Quinn, born in Chihuahua during the Mexican Revolution itself, took the Oscar, while Brando, nominated for playing Zapata, went home without one.

Which actress won her second Best Actress Oscar as Blanche DuBois in Kazan's 1951 film?

Vivien Leigh had played Blanche on the London stage under her husband Laurence Olivier's direction, and was the one lead Kazan did not bring from his Broadway cast.

Which actress originated Blanche DuBois on Broadway for Kazan, only to lose the part in his 1951 film?

Jessica Tandy won a Tony for the role, and Kazan wanted her for the film, but the producer insisted on a bigger box-office name; her fellow leads all kept their parts.

Which screenwriter wrote both Kazan's 1954 dockside drama and "A Face in the Crowd"?

Budd Schulberg had himself named names to Congress in 1951, a year before Kazan, after a former comrade identified him as an ex-Communist.

Kazan's 1956 film "Baby Doll" was condemned by which Catholic watchdog for its implied sexuality?

The National Legion of Decency condemned it, and New York's Cardinal Spellman called the film 'revolting' and urged Catholics and non-Catholics alike to stay away.

In Kazan's 1960 film "Wild River", a matriarch refuses to sell her island to which agency?

The Tennessee Valley Authority must clear her island before a new dam floods it; Montgomery Clift plays the agent who comes to respect the old woman he has to evict.

Kazan's 1963 film "America America" dramatises the journey to the United States of which relative?

His uncle Avraam set out as a boy with the family's savings, lost them on the way, and still reached New York, where he later brought Kazan's father over.

Kazan's last film, "The Last Tycoon" (1976), adapted whose unfinished novel?

F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 with the Hollywood novel unfinished; its hero, Monroe Stahr, is modelled on MGM's young production chief Irving Thalberg.

Who co-directed "A Letter to Elia", the 2010 documentary tribute to Kazan that won a Peabody Award?

Martin Scorsese, who made it with critic Kent Jones, narrates how Kazan's films shaped him as a young filmgoer and future director.

Kazan quit the Communist Party in the 1930s after refusing its order to help do what?

He refused to help take over his own theatre company, was denounced at a cell meeting by a party official from Detroit, and resigned rather than repent.

What public step did Kazan take two days after testifying?

He took out a New York Times ad defending it, headed 'A Statement', which urged others to follow his example; his wife Molly is credited with writing it.

Which director called Kazan "a traitor" in 1982, then added, "he is a very good director"?

Orson Welles was answering a question at the Cinémathèque française in Paris, where he called Kazan's 1954 dockside film 'a celebration of the informer' to applause.

Kazan's second wife, Barbara Loden, wrote, directed and starred in which acclaimed 1970 independent film?

Wanda grew from a newspaper story about a woman who thanked the judge for sending her to prison over a bank robbery; Loden shot it on 16mm with a tiny crew.

Kazan's first wife, script reader Molly Day Thacher, is credited with discovering which writer?

Tennessee Williams was an unknown when she, as her company's play reader, awarded him a prize that launched his career; her husband went on to direct his most famous plays.

The title of "Splendor in the Grass" comes from a poem by which writer?

William Wordsworth's ode 'Intimations of Immortality' supplies the line; at the film's close Natalie Wood's voice recites it, ending on finding strength in what remains behind.

Kazan's father expected him to take over the family business in New York, selling what?

Rugs: his father, who had sent for the family from New York, dealt in them and expected his son to take over; Kazan chose college and the theatre instead.

Kazan had a large supporting role as a flashy gangster in which 1940 James Cagney boxing film?

City for Conquest was one of only two films he acted in, both in gangster parts; he doubted his future as more than a screen villain and turned to directing instead.

Which comedian, long shut out of Hollywood films, did Kazan insist on casting in "Panic in the Streets"?

Zero Mostel had not made a film since 1943; Kazan called him his favourite in the cast and one of three people he rescued from the industry's blacklist.

What did Kazan persuade the playwright of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" to do in 1955?

Rewrite the third act: Kazan wanted Maggie more sympathetic, Big Daddy back on stage and Brick changed, so the author published both endings and let readers judge.

Which Connecticut city, where the real case happened, refused Kazan permission to shoot 'Boomerang!' (1947)?

Bridgeport said no, so Kazan shot mostly in nearby Stamford; the real prosecutor who cleared the accused drifter, Homer Cummings, later became US Attorney General.

Kazan's 1953 film "Man on a Tightrope" follows a circus troupe escaping from which Communist country?

Czechoslovakia is the film's setting, but the real escape behind it, by Germany's Circus Brumbach in 1950, was from East Germany; the Brumbach troupe appears in the film.

Which British playwright wrote the screenplay for Kazan's "The Last Tycoon"?

Harold Pinter wrote it for producer Sam Spiegel, but the film earned back less than half its budget and proved to be the last Kazan directed.

Which award did Kazan receive in Washington in 1983, alongside Frank Sinatra and James Stewart?

The Kennedy Center Honors named him among five honorees, yet in the 1990s the American Film Institute refused him its own life achievement award because of his testimony.

Which actor, later the voice of Hades in Disney's "Hercules", made his film debut in Kazan's "The Visitors" (1972)?

James Woods played a Vietnam veteran in the low-budget drama, which Kazan shot on 16mm at his own Connecticut farm from a script by his son Chris.

Which 1949 Broadway premiere, directed by Kazan with Lee J. Cobb, won both the Pulitzer and the Tony for Best Play?

Death of a Salesman ran for 742 performances; its author is said to have written the whole first act in less than a day, in a small studio he had built in Connecticut.

Which American novelist wrote the screenplay of Kazan's Zapata biopic and the novel behind his "East of Eden"?

John Steinbeck wrote the Zapata script himself, while Kazan's film of his sprawling family saga used only the final part of the book.

Kazan's 1967 novel about a suicidal ad executive became which 1969 Kirk Douglas film?

The Arrangement became a bestseller, so Kazan wrote, produced and directed the film himself; he wanted Brando for the lead, but Brando turned it down.

What did Kazan do to the apartment set of his 1951 Brando film as the story went on?

He made it smaller and smaller, he said, after attempts to open the play out lost its compression: the characters had to feel trapped in a room together.

Which two directors co-founded the 1930s New York theatre company where Kazan began his career?

Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman started it in 1931 with Cheryl Crawford; Strasberg, one of Kazan's first teachers, later took charge of the workshop his pupil had founded.

Which line does Brando deliver in the taxi scene of Kazan's 1954 film?

'I coulda been a contender' is Terry's lament to his brother Charley, played by Rod Steiger, that a fixed fight cost him his shot; it ranks third on the AFI's list of film quotes.

Kazan's 1954 longshoremen film drew on a Pulitzer-winning newspaper series by which reporter?

Malcolm Johnson exposed racketeering on the New York docks in a New York Sun series in 1948; the film moved the story across the river to New Jersey.

Which Broadway star played Abra, the girl caught between two brothers, in Kazan's "East of Eden"?

Julie Harris, a Tony winner, was billed above her unknown co-star, yet the Oscar attention went elsewhere: he was nominated and Jo Van Fleet won, while she was passed over.

Besides "The Unsatisfactory Supper", which one-act play by the same author became Kazan's "Baby Doll"?

27 Wagons Full of Cotton supplied the feud between rival cotton-gin owners; Kazan later claimed its author was only half-heartedly involved and that he wrote most of the script himself.

Which screen couple starred in Kazan's 1947 western "The Sea of Grass"?

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn played much of it against stock prairie footage on MGM stages; Kazan later called it the only film he was ashamed of and told people not to see it.

Which future star of "The Omen" made her film debut as a baton-twirling teenager in Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd"?

Lee Remick spent two weeks in Piggott, Arkansas, with a teenage twirler, learning the baton and the local accent before playing the majorette who catches Lonesome Rhodes's eye.

Which film star does Kazan's memoir name as his lover in the early 1950s?

Marilyn Monroe was later considered for the lead in his Baby Doll, but Kazan cast Carroll Baker; Monroe served as an usherette at the film's benefit premiere instead.