Maria Ouspenskaya (Russian: Мария Успенская; July 29, 1876 – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress who achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.
Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russia to a lawyer father. She studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater.
A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, Ouspenskaya was directed by Constantin Stanisla...
more
Maria Ouspenskaya (Russian: Мария Успенская; July 29, 1876 – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress who achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.
Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russia to a lawyer father. She studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater.
A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, Ouspenskaya was directed by Constantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his 'system', which in America became 'method acting'. The Moscow Art Theatre travelled widely throughout Europe and when it arrived in New York in 1922 she decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade, and in 1929 she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was Anne Baxter, then an unknown teenager.
Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier,...
less
