Michael Chekhov was a Russian actor in the Moscow Art Theatre who
emigrated to America and made a career in Hollywood, earning himself an
Oscar nomination.
He was born Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov in St. Petersburg, Russia in
1891. His mother, Natalya Golden, was Jewish, and his father, Aleksandr
Chekhov, was a brother of writer
Anton Chekhov. Anton wrote of his
four-year-old nephew in 1895, "I believe that he has a growing talent."
From 1907-11 he studied classic drama and comedy at Suvorin Theater
School in St. Petersburg, graduating with honors as actor. In St.
Petersburg he met
Konstantin Stanislavski who
invited him to join the Moscow Art Theater. The two became good friends
and partners in propelling the Moscow Art Theater to international
fame. Later Stanislavsky wrote that Michael Chekhov was a genius.
His film career began in 1913 with a role in 'Tryokhsotletie
tsarstvovaniya doma Romanovykh
(1913)' (aka Tercentenary of the
Romanov Dynasty), followed by a few more roles in Russian silent films. It was during the Russian Revolution of 1917 that his beloved first wife,
Olga Tschechowa,
divorced him. He was devastated and suffered from depression and
alcoholism for the rest of his life.
Between 1922 and 1928 he led the second Moscow Art Theater, earning
himself a reputation as teacher, actor and director who brought
innovations experimenting with symbolism and acmeist poetry. Chekhov
updated the Stanislavsky's acting method, by blending it with yoga,
theosophy, psychology and physiology, and adding his own ideas of
transformation of actor's consciousness through psychological gesture
and movement techniques for entering a special state of subconscious
creativity. His idea of using an actor's own intuition and creative
imagination was a departure from the original method of his teacher,
Stanislavsky.
Chekhov ignored the communist regime and was attacked by the Soviets
for joining the Anthroposophic Society. In 1928 he was fired from the
Moscow Art Theatre and eventually left Russia. In Europe, he taught his
acting method and also made a big success in German films, co-starring
with his ex-wife Olga Tschechowa, who
was then living in Germany with her second husband. In 1931 he founded
the Chekhov Theatre, with support from Rachmaninov, Bohner and
Morgenstern, and in 1935 he brought the Chekhov Theatre on tour to New
York. He taught acting in France, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, and in
England before WWII. In 1938 he moved to the United States, where he
started his own school, and also successfully directed Dostoyevsky's
"Demons" on Broadway. Then he was introduced to Hollywood by
Sergei Rachmaninoff.
In 1945 Chekhov played his best known film role, psychiatrist Brulov in
Ich kämpfe um dich (1945). He received an
Academy Award nomination for the role and became a member of the
American Film Academy in 1946. At that time, he taught his acting
method in Hollywood. In 1953 he published a book about his method, "To
The Actor", with preface written by
Yul Brynner. His students included
Gregory Peck,
Marilyn Monroe,
Gary Cooper,
Ingrid Bergman,
Anthony Quinn,
Jack Palance,
Feodor Chaliapin Jr.,
Elia Kazan,
Clint Eastwood,
Yul Brynner and many other Hollywood actors
and directors.
At the end of his life Chekhov reunited with his daughter
Ada Tschechowa in California. He died in
1955 in Beverly Hills, and was laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Cemetery
in Los Angeles.
