Mira Rostova

Mira Rostova (April 10, 1909 – January 28, 2009) was an American actress turned acting teacher, best known for her own variation of method acting that she used in coaching of Montgomery Clift. Her other acting students included Armand Assante, Alec Baldwin, Peter Gallagher, Jessica Lange, Zohra Lampert, Jerry Orbach and Madonna (who attended approximately half a dozen class sessions, working on scenes from Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke and Isherwood's I Am a Camera).

Early life

Rostova was born on April 10, 1909 with the surname Rosovskaya in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She fled to Switzerland after the Russian Revolution and then Hamburg, Germany, where she began acting. She also acted in Vienna. She moved to France after the rise of the Nazi party, and made it to the United States by way of England. In the U.S., she abbreviated her surname to Rostova.^[1]

Career

Rostova had been taken in on a scholarship by Robert Lewis. She was cast as a fake witch doctor in Mexican Mural, an experimental play directed by Lewis, when she first met Clift, who also appeared in the play. Gradually, Rostova would play an increasing role in his acting career, discussing for hours the roles he should accept and the way he should act in these roles. Patricia Bosworth, Clift's biographer, described how Rostova had been hired on the payroll as Clift's coach while he was starring in films including A Place in the Sun and The Heiress.^[1]

Rostova was a fixture in his dressing room by 1945, when Clift had a lead role in You Touched Me!, a play by Tennessee Williams and Donald Windham. Clift became frustrated living at home with his mother and Rostova moved him into her apartment, while she moved out and found another place to live. During the filming of Alfred Hitchcock's 1953 film I Confess, Rostova stood behind a pillar and Clift would look over for her approval. During the filming of the 1949 drama The Heiress, co-star Olivia de Havilland said that Clift would look in the opposite direction.^[1]

While other notable acting teachers such as Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg would also act themselves, Rostova made few appearances of her own on stage or film, though she did perform the role of Nina in her own translation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, which she staged Off Broadway with Clift in 1954.^[1] Reviewer Brooks Atkinson in The New York Times called it an "interesting performance" of "an incomparably beautiful play", saying that "Rostova as Nina is handicapped by a heavy accent. She is further handicapped by a florid style alien to the whole spirit of Chekhov", though he called Clift's performance as Constantin "beautifully expressed without any foolish pathology".^[2]

Elia Kazan kicked her off the set of the 1960 film Wild River after a single day of filming.^[1] In Richard Schickel's 2005 biography of Kazan, he describes how she positioned herself behind the director during filming and would nod or shake her head as Clift was acting, but Kazan was unwilling to have her as a co-director.^[3]

Death

Rostova died at age 99 on January 28, 2009 in a Manhattan nursing home, three months shy of her 100th birthday. There were no known survivors.^[1]

References

1. Grode, Eric. "Mira Rostova, Coach to Montgomery Clift, Dies at 99", The New York Times, February 5, 2009; accessed February 6, 2009.
2. Atkinson, Bruce. "Theatre: 'Sea Gull' at the Phoenix; Off-Broadway Group Stages Chekhov Play", The New York Times, May 12, 1954; accessed February 7, 2009.
3. Schickel, Richard. "Elia Kazan", via Google Books, p. 370. HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-019579-7. Accessed February 7, 2009.