Recent from talks
James Lipton
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
James Lipton
Louis James Lipton (September 19, 1926 – March 2, 2020) was an American writer, actor, talk show host, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He was the executive producer, writer, and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994. He retired from the show in 2018.
Louis James Lipton was born on September 19, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan, the only child of Betty (née Weinberg), a teacher and librarian, and Lawrence Lipton, a journalist and beat poet. Known for writing the Beat Generation chronicle The Holy Barbarians, Lawrence was a graphic designer, a columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward, and a publicity director for a movie theater. Lawrence was a Polish Jewish emigrant (from Łódź), whose surname was originally Lipschitz. Betty's parents were Russian Jews. His parents divorced when Lipton was six, and his father abandoned the family.
Lipton's family struggled financially, and he started to work when he was 13 years old. He worked in high school as a newspaper copy boy for the Detroit Times and as an actor in the Catholic Theater of Detroit and in radio. Lipton had initially intended to become an attorney. After graduating from Central High School in Detroit, he attended Wayne State University for one year in the mid-1940s and enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Lipton talked about his time in Paris in the 1950s, when he worked as a pimp for about a year. On the Today show, Lipton clarified that he had worked as a beneficent maque in the regulated prostitution business.
Shortly after graduating high school, Lipton portrayed Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger's nephew, on WXYZ Radio's The Lone Ranger. He initially studied to be a lawyer in New York City, and turned to acting to finance his education. From 1952 to 1962, Lipton starred in The Guiding Light, playing the role of Dr. Dick Grant and eventually becoming head writer. He wrote for several soap operas: Another World, The Edge of Night, The Best of Everything, Return to Peyton Place and Capitol. Lipton studied for two and a half years with Stella Adler, four years with Harold Clurman, and two years with Robert Lewis. He also started studying voice and dance (including modern dance and classical ballet), and choreographed a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre.
In 1951, he appeared in the Broadway play The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman. He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's 1953 film, The Big Break, a crime drama.
He wrote the book and lyrics for the 1962 Broadway musical Nowhere To Go But Up. The show had its tryout in Philadelphia at the Shubert Theatre opening October 6, 1962, to mixed notices. The show opened in New York on November 10, 1962, at the Winter Garden, to generally unfavorable reviews. John Chapman wrote in the NY Daily News that the show "is delicious bathtub gin. . . . This is a happy show." But Howard Taubman said in The New York Times: "Don't let anyone tell you that 'Nowhere to Go but Up' is a little horror. Because it's a big one." As a result, Kermit Bloomgarden, the producer, decided to close the show on November 17, 1962, after nine performances. A group of 234 small investors tried to keep the show from closing by parading in front of the theater and sought an injunction, but the NY Supreme Court ruled in favor of the producer.
He was the librettist and lyricist for the short-lived 1967 Broadway musical Sherry!, based on the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play The Man Who Came to Dinner, with music by his childhood friend Laurence Rosenthal. The score and orchestrations were lost for more than thirty years, and the original cast was never recorded. In 2003, a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Mike Myers and others) renewed interest in the show.
His book, An Exaltation of Larks, was first published in 1968, and has been in print and revised several times since then, including a 1993 Penguin Books edition. The book is a collection of "terms of venery", both real and created by Lipton himself. The dust jacket biography for the first edition of Exaltation said his activities included fencing, swimming, and equestrian pursuits and that he had written two Broadway productions.
Hub AI
James Lipton AI simulator
(@James Lipton_simulator)
James Lipton
Louis James Lipton (September 19, 1926 – March 2, 2020) was an American writer, actor, talk show host, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He was the executive producer, writer, and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994. He retired from the show in 2018.
Louis James Lipton was born on September 19, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan, the only child of Betty (née Weinberg), a teacher and librarian, and Lawrence Lipton, a journalist and beat poet. Known for writing the Beat Generation chronicle The Holy Barbarians, Lawrence was a graphic designer, a columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward, and a publicity director for a movie theater. Lawrence was a Polish Jewish emigrant (from Łódź), whose surname was originally Lipschitz. Betty's parents were Russian Jews. His parents divorced when Lipton was six, and his father abandoned the family.
Lipton's family struggled financially, and he started to work when he was 13 years old. He worked in high school as a newspaper copy boy for the Detroit Times and as an actor in the Catholic Theater of Detroit and in radio. Lipton had initially intended to become an attorney. After graduating from Central High School in Detroit, he attended Wayne State University for one year in the mid-1940s and enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Lipton talked about his time in Paris in the 1950s, when he worked as a pimp for about a year. On the Today show, Lipton clarified that he had worked as a beneficent maque in the regulated prostitution business.
Shortly after graduating high school, Lipton portrayed Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger's nephew, on WXYZ Radio's The Lone Ranger. He initially studied to be a lawyer in New York City, and turned to acting to finance his education. From 1952 to 1962, Lipton starred in The Guiding Light, playing the role of Dr. Dick Grant and eventually becoming head writer. He wrote for several soap operas: Another World, The Edge of Night, The Best of Everything, Return to Peyton Place and Capitol. Lipton studied for two and a half years with Stella Adler, four years with Harold Clurman, and two years with Robert Lewis. He also started studying voice and dance (including modern dance and classical ballet), and choreographed a ballet for the American Ballet Theatre.
In 1951, he appeared in the Broadway play The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman. He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's 1953 film, The Big Break, a crime drama.
He wrote the book and lyrics for the 1962 Broadway musical Nowhere To Go But Up. The show had its tryout in Philadelphia at the Shubert Theatre opening October 6, 1962, to mixed notices. The show opened in New York on November 10, 1962, at the Winter Garden, to generally unfavorable reviews. John Chapman wrote in the NY Daily News that the show "is delicious bathtub gin. . . . This is a happy show." But Howard Taubman said in The New York Times: "Don't let anyone tell you that 'Nowhere to Go but Up' is a little horror. Because it's a big one." As a result, Kermit Bloomgarden, the producer, decided to close the show on November 17, 1962, after nine performances. A group of 234 small investors tried to keep the show from closing by parading in front of the theater and sought an injunction, but the NY Supreme Court ruled in favor of the producer.
He was the librettist and lyricist for the short-lived 1967 Broadway musical Sherry!, based on the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play The Man Who Came to Dinner, with music by his childhood friend Laurence Rosenthal. The score and orchestrations were lost for more than thirty years, and the original cast was never recorded. In 2003, a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Mike Myers and others) renewed interest in the show.
His book, An Exaltation of Larks, was first published in 1968, and has been in print and revised several times since then, including a 1993 Penguin Books edition. The book is a collection of "terms of venery", both real and created by Lipton himself. The dust jacket biography for the first edition of Exaltation said his activities included fencing, swimming, and equestrian pursuits and that he had written two Broadway productions.
Recent media