Julian Beck(1925-1985)
- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
A bold, innovative, avant-garde figure in theatre who helped
revolutionized the style of playwriting and acting in the 1950s and
1960s, actor/writer/producer/directer Julian Beck was certainly a
odd-looking sort with his baleful, hollow eyes, stark and skullish
features and near-bald dome capped by long fringes of stringy hair
along the side. He could have easily given inspiration to the creepy
look Richard O'Brien gave his bizarre
character in "The Rocky Horror Show."
Born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City,
Julian was the son of Irving, a businessman, and Mabel Lucille (Blum)
Beck. Educated at the College of the City of New York, he briefly
attended Yale University, but then abandoned it to pursue writing and
art. An abstract expressionist painter in the 1940s, his life's destiny
was forever changed after meeting his future wife,
actress/writer/director Judith Malina, in
1943. His passions swiftly centered around the likes of hers -- the
theatre -- and together they co-founded The Living Theatre in 1947,
which would base itself in New York City. Their subsequent
contributions propelled the off-off-Broadway movement and the vision of
performance art. Julian would continue to work with the Living Theater
up until his death nearly forty years later.
The group strongly reflected the ideals of another theatre
revolutionary, Antonin Artaud
(1896-1948), who embraced the Theatre of Cruelty and sought to jar its
audiences out of their own complacency. The plays were presented in
various venues, chiefly in the couple's own home when it couldn't
financial keep up a theatre space. The Living Theatre also spread its
philosophy throughout the world, performing extensively in
non-traditional places such as street corners and prisons. In one
performance piece, from Jack Gelbert's "The Connection," the drama
about drug addiction had its actors playing junkies and wandering about
the audience shouting expletives while demanding money for a fix. They
were among the first to import the plays of
Bertolt Brecht and
Jean Cocteau, as well as modernist poets
such as T.S. Eliot and
Gertrude Stein. Their productions could
be undeniably repelling or imaginative and often involved collective
improvisation. It took on an anarcho-pacifist point of view while
celebrating the uninhibited use of drugs, hallucinogens, crude language
and anything else under the kitchen sink in order to send home its
political intent or shock effect. One of their their most controversial
works was "Paradise Now" (1968), a free-form denouncement of American
life that involved nudity and audience participation. Other productions
include "The Brig" (1963), "In the Jungle of the Cities" (1960), The
Brig (1963), "Frankenstein" (1968) and Antigone (1968). Their work
often led to their frequent arrests for anything from indecent exposure
to drug possession.
The Living Theater moved out of New York for a time in 1974 due to tax
problems and a sensationalistic trial that Beck and Malina lost.
Besides his theatre work, Beck published several volumes of poetry
reflecting his left-wing, anarchist beliefs, two non-fiction books and
a handful of experimental and mainstream films. His intense, imposing
acting style was captured vividly in films, such as his sadistic
gangster in
The Cotton Club (1984) and his
creepy, spectral stranger in
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986),
a rare major role that ended up becoming his final movie.
Diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1983, he died at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City while filming the afore-mentioned movie at the age of
60 on September 14, 1985. He was survived by his wife, a brother, and
two children, Garrick and Isha.
revolutionized the style of playwriting and acting in the 1950s and
1960s, actor/writer/producer/directer Julian Beck was certainly a
odd-looking sort with his baleful, hollow eyes, stark and skullish
features and near-bald dome capped by long fringes of stringy hair
along the side. He could have easily given inspiration to the creepy
look Richard O'Brien gave his bizarre
character in "The Rocky Horror Show."
Born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City,
Julian was the son of Irving, a businessman, and Mabel Lucille (Blum)
Beck. Educated at the College of the City of New York, he briefly
attended Yale University, but then abandoned it to pursue writing and
art. An abstract expressionist painter in the 1940s, his life's destiny
was forever changed after meeting his future wife,
actress/writer/director Judith Malina, in
1943. His passions swiftly centered around the likes of hers -- the
theatre -- and together they co-founded The Living Theatre in 1947,
which would base itself in New York City. Their subsequent
contributions propelled the off-off-Broadway movement and the vision of
performance art. Julian would continue to work with the Living Theater
up until his death nearly forty years later.
The group strongly reflected the ideals of another theatre
revolutionary, Antonin Artaud
(1896-1948), who embraced the Theatre of Cruelty and sought to jar its
audiences out of their own complacency. The plays were presented in
various venues, chiefly in the couple's own home when it couldn't
financial keep up a theatre space. The Living Theatre also spread its
philosophy throughout the world, performing extensively in
non-traditional places such as street corners and prisons. In one
performance piece, from Jack Gelbert's "The Connection," the drama
about drug addiction had its actors playing junkies and wandering about
the audience shouting expletives while demanding money for a fix. They
were among the first to import the plays of
Bertolt Brecht and
Jean Cocteau, as well as modernist poets
such as T.S. Eliot and
Gertrude Stein. Their productions could
be undeniably repelling or imaginative and often involved collective
improvisation. It took on an anarcho-pacifist point of view while
celebrating the uninhibited use of drugs, hallucinogens, crude language
and anything else under the kitchen sink in order to send home its
political intent or shock effect. One of their their most controversial
works was "Paradise Now" (1968), a free-form denouncement of American
life that involved nudity and audience participation. Other productions
include "The Brig" (1963), "In the Jungle of the Cities" (1960), The
Brig (1963), "Frankenstein" (1968) and Antigone (1968). Their work
often led to their frequent arrests for anything from indecent exposure
to drug possession.
The Living Theater moved out of New York for a time in 1974 due to tax
problems and a sensationalistic trial that Beck and Malina lost.
Besides his theatre work, Beck published several volumes of poetry
reflecting his left-wing, anarchist beliefs, two non-fiction books and
a handful of experimental and mainstream films. His intense, imposing
acting style was captured vividly in films, such as his sadistic
gangster in
The Cotton Club (1984) and his
creepy, spectral stranger in
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986),
a rare major role that ended up becoming his final movie.
Diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1983, he died at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City while filming the afore-mentioned movie at the age of
60 on September 14, 1985. He was survived by his wife, a brother, and
two children, Garrick and Isha.