John Houseman
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| John Houseman | |
 John Houseman, May 1979, at the National Film Society convention in Los Angeles |
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| Born | Jacques Haussmann September 22, 1902 Bucharest, Romania |
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| Died | October 31, 1988 (aged 86) Malibu, California, United States |
| Spouse(s) | Zita Johann (1929–1933) Joan Courtney (1952–1988) |
John Houseman (September 22, 1902—October 31, 1988) was an Academy Award-winning American actor and film producer.
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[edit] Personal life
Houseman was born Jacques Haussmann in Bucharest, the son of a British mother of Welsh and Irish descent and an Alsatian-born Jewish father who ran a grain business.[1][2][3][4] He was educated in England at Clifton College, became a British citizen and worked in the Grain trade in London before emigrating to the United States in 1925, where he took the stage name of John Houseman. He became a citizen of the U.S. in 1943.[5] Houseman died of spinal cancer in 1988 at his home in Malibu, California.
[edit] Career
Houseman produced numerous Broadway productions, including Heartbreak Hotel, Three Sisters, The Beggar's Opera, and several Shakespearean plays. He also directed Lute Song, The Country Girl, and Don Juan in Hell, among others.[6]
Houseman himself worked as a speculator in the international grain markets, only turning to the theater when those markets collapsed in 1929 and receiving his first opportunity of any any note in 1933 when composer Virgil Thomson recruited him to direct Four Saints in Three Acts, Thomson's collaboration with Gertrude Stein. [7] In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theatre performers and employees to work. The "Negro Units" of the Federal Theatre Project were headed by Rose McClendon, a well-known black actress, and John Houseman, a theatre producer. John Houseman hired Orson Welles and him assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theater Unit. Houseman and Welles produced Macbeth, set the production in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe (and with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters). Jack Carter [disambiguation needed] played Macbeth. The incidental music was composed by Virgil Thomson.
In June of 1937, Welles’s and Houseman’s FTP unit to be produced The Cradle Will Rock. Written by Marc Blitzstein The Cradle Will Rock was about Larry Foreman, a worker in Steeltown (played in the original production by Howard da Silva), which is run by the boss, Mister Mister (played in the original production by Will Geer -- Grandpa in "The Waltons"). The show was thought to have had left-wing and unionist sympathies (Foreman ends the show with a song about "onions" taking over the town and the country), and has become legendary as an example of a "censored" show. Shortly before the show was to open, FTP officials in Washington announced that no productions would open until after July 1, 1937, the beginning of the new fiscal year. John Houseman writes in his book Runthrough about the circumstances surrounding the opening of the show. All the performers had been enjoined not to perform on stage for the production when it opened on July 14, 1937. The cast and crew left their government-owned theatre and walked 20 blocks to another theatre, with the audience following. No one knew what to expect; when they got there Blitzstein himself was at the piano and started playing the introduction music. One of the non-professional performers, Olive Stanton, who played the part of Moll, the prostitute, stood up in the audience, and began singing her part. All the other performers, in turn, stood up for their parts. Thus the "oratorio" version of the show was born. Apparently, Welles had designed some intricate scenery, which ended up never being used. Welles and Houseman left the FTP shortly after that, and formed the Mercury Theatre (later to become famous for their controversial War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which had put much of the country in a panic), performed Cradle on Sundays, and later took the show to Broadway. [8]
Along with Orson Welles, Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, best remembered for their 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Their collaboration was portrayed in Tim Robbins's 1999 movie Cradle Will Rock.
During the Second World War, Houseman worked for the Voice of America, managing its operations in New York.[9]
Houseman produced more than two dozen films, including the 1946 film noir, The Blue Dahlia and the 1953 film adaptation of Julius Caesar (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Picture"). He first became widely known to the public, however, for his Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning role as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase. He reprised his role in the television series of the same name from 1978-1986, receiving two Golden Globe nominations for "Best Actor in a TV Series - Drama".
He was the Executive Producer of CBS' landmark Seven Lively Arts series. Houseman also played Energy Corporation Executive Bartholomew in the 1975 film Rollerball and parodied Sydney Greenstreet in the 1978 Neil Simon film, The Cheap Detective.
In the 1980s, Houseman became more widely known for his role as grandfather Edward Stratton II in Silver Spoons, which starred Rick Schroder, and for his commercials for brokerage firm Smith Barney, which featured the catchphrase, "They make money the old fashioned way...they earn it." Another was Puritan brand cooking oil, with "less saturated fat than the leading oil", featuring the famous 'tomato test'. He also made a guest appearance in John Carpenter's 1980 movie The Fog as Mr. Machen. He played the Jewish professor Aaron Jastrow in the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War (receiving a fourth Golden Globe nomination).
Houseman taught acting at The Juilliard School where his first graduating class included Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. Unwilling to see his first class immediately disbanded by the testing world of stage and screen, he formed them into a touring repertory company appropriately named the Group 1 Acting Company. They later shortened their name simply to The Acting Company and are still touring the country today.
In 1988, he appeared in The Naked Gun and Scrooged, which were released after his death.
In 2001, he was portrayed by Jonathan Rigby in the Doctor Who audio adventure Invaders from Mars.
In February 2008, filming began on the movie Me and Orson Welles. The film tells the story of Houseman's relationship with Orson Welles when running The Mercury Theatre in New York in the late 1930s. The film is using The Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man to replicate The Mercury.
[edit] Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 | Too Much Johnson | Duelist | |
| 1964 | Seven Days in May | Vice-Adm. Farley C. Barnswell | uncredited |
| 1973 | The Paper Chase | Charles W. Kingsfield Jr. | Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; Golden Globe |
| 1975 | Three Days of the Condor | Wabash | |
| Rollerball | Bartholomew | ||
| 1976 | St. Ives | Abner Procane | |
| 1978 | The Cheap Detective | Jasper Blubber | |
| 1979 | Old Boyfriends | Doctor Hoffman | |
| 1980 | The Fog | Mr. Machen | |
| A Christmas Without Snow | Ephraim Adams | ||
| My Bodyguard | Mr. Dobbs | ||
| Wholly Moses! | The Archangel | ||
| 1981 | Ghost Story | Sears James | |
| 1982 | Rose for Emily | Narrator | |
| Murder by Phone | Stanley Markowitz | ||
| 1988 | The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! | Driving Instructor | uncredited |
| Another Woman | Marion's Father | ||
| Bright Lights, Big City | Mr. Vogel | ||
| Scrooged | Himself |
1983 Winds of War + John Houseman
[edit] References
- ^ Magill, Frank Northen (1977). Survey of Contemporary Literature. Salem Pr. Inc.. pp. 6535. ISBN 0893560502.
- ^ Houseman, John (1972). Run-Through: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster. pp. 15. ISBN.
- ^ John Houseman. Encyclopedia Britannica.
- ^ John Houseman New York Times Movies.
- ^ John Houseman
- ^ John Houseman at the Internet Broadway Database
- ^ Anthony Tommasini (1997) "Virgil Thomson -- Composer on the Aisle," pp 241-243.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "The Beginning: An American Voice Greets the World". Voice of America. http://www.voanews.com/english/about/beginning-of-an-american-voice.cfm.
John Houseman + Winds of War + 1983
[edit] External links
- John Houseman at the Internet Movie Database
- John Houseman interviewed by TV Guide Nov.18, 1978
- Article by John Houseman in TV Guide Aug. 9, 1986
- Pictures of John Houseman as Prof. Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
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