Stella Adler 1901-1992

Renowned actor and teacher Stella Adler began her acting career at age four at the Lower East Side's Grand Street Theater, which was a part of her parents' Independent Yiddish Art Company. She made her debut on Broadway in 1922 as the butterfly in The World We Live In. Adler moved to Hollywood in 1937 and worked as an associate producer at MGM and starred in films such as Love on Toast (1937). Eventually, she returned to New York to act, direct, and teach, and she founded the Stella Adler Conservatory in 1949. Adler became renowned as a teacher of Method Acting and her students included Marlon Brando and Melanie Griffith. "Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one," she is known to have said.