James Lipton, an actor-turned-academic who became an unlikely celebrity and got hundreds of master actors and Hollywood luminaries to open up about their craft as the long-time host of Inside the Actors Studio, died on Monday at age 93.
Lipton died of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter.
The Detroit-born Lipton began the show in 1994 that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio, where he was then dean.
He often said his only requirement for a guest was whether they had something to teach his students.
His first guest, Paul Newman, set a standard of stardom for those that would follow, including Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.
Lipton was known, and often parodied, for his highbrow and sometimes worshipful tone with his subjects, and for his intensive preparation, represented by a stack of blue note cards that held his meticulously researched questions.
When Will Ferrell played Lipton on Saturday Night Live the stack of cards was nearly 30cm thick.
Many otherwise media-shy actors were willing to appear on Inside the Actors Studio because Lipton focused on their art and not the usual celebrity chatter or project promotion.
“People do not come on to sell a movie and you never hear the words: ‘I’m opening in Vegas in two weeks,’” Lipton told The Associated Press (AP) in 1996, when the show was in its second season. “That’s what most talk shows depend upon, and that’s fine, but with us we’re getting together to dig as deep as we can.”
He was not afraid to get personal and often stunned those he interviewed with things he had learned about their childhood or private life.
“How did you know that?” was a frequent refrain from his guests.
Sally Field asked him: “Have you been reading my diary? Talking to my shrink?”
Julia Roberts asked if he had talked to her mother.
“Obviously we deal in lots of anecdotes, and even some gossip and secrets,” Lipton told the AP, “but they’re tied together by a concern for and devotion to craft.”
Despite a guest list of nearly every A-list actor of the past few decades, Lipton never got the guest he wanted most, Marlon Brando.
“He was reclusive in the last years of his life,” Lipton told Parade in 2013.
“He said: ‘I’m never going to do your show. The studio’s always taking credit for me. I was trained by Stella Adler.’ I said: ‘So was I. Come on. We’ll talk about Stella.’ I’ve had a pretty good roster of guests without Marlon,” Lipton said.
Lipton said his favorite guest on the show was Bradley Cooper, because he was a former student.
“The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing,” Lipton told Larry King in 2016. “It turned out to be Bradley Cooper.”
Lipton and Cooper, who can be seen asking Sean Penn a question in a 1999 episode of the show, both teared up when he returned as a guest in 2011.
Other than Brando and Jack Nicholson, another favorite of his who he never had as a guest, Lipton spent little time trying to land big names, who often came to him, as appearing on the show became a sought-after sign of career achievement for actors.
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