James Lipton

Infobox Person
name = James Lipton


image_size = 270px
caption = James Lipton, April 2007
birth_date = birth date and age|1926|9|19
birth_place = Detroit, Michigan, United States
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = Poet, talk show host, writer
spouse = Kedakai Turner Lipton
parents =
children =

James Lipton (born September 19, 1926) is an American writer, poet, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series, "Inside the Actors Studio", which debuted in 1994. He is also a pilot and a member of Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Early and personal life

Lipton was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Betty (née Weinberg), a teacher, and journalist Lawrence Lipton. Noted as the author of the popular Beat Generation chronicle, "The Holy Barbarians", Lawrence Lipton was a graphic designer, a columnist for the "Jewish Daily Forward" and a publicity director for a movie theater.cite web|accessdate=2008-05-12|url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/5/James-Lipton.html|title=James Lipton Biography (1926-)|publisher=Film Reference] [cite web|accessdate=2008-05-12|url=http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/22022/edition_id/445/format/html/displaystory.html|title=Celebrity Jews|publisher=Jewish SF|date=2004-04-02|author=Bloom, Nate] [cite web|accessdate=2008-05-12|url=http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/index.html|title=USC Rare Books & Manuscripts|publisher=University of Southern California]

While James was living in Paris during the post-WWII years, penniless and unable to acquire a work permit, he became a "maquereau", an associate of female prostitutes who arranged their encounters and translated between the client and the prostitute. This is contrary to the misconception that Lipton became a pimp; a "maquereau" in fact is employed by the prostitute herself. In his autobiography, "Inside Inside", Lipton explained that he had a "thriving business" with tourists, taking nervous young middle-class American couples to see sex exhibitions staged by French prostitutes; [cite book|title=Inside Inside|author=Lipton, James|publisher=Dutton Adult|date=2007-10-18|isbn=0525950354] one such exhibition is described in Farley Granger's autobiography "Include Me Out".

Between 1954 and 1959, Lipton was married to actress Nina Foch. He has been married to Kedakai Turner, a model and real estate broker, since 1970.

Mr. Lipton is the author of "An Exaltation of Larks", a book of collective nouns, published by Penguin.cite book|title=An Exaltation of Larks: The Ultimate Edition|author=Lipton, James|publisher=Penguin Books|date=1993-11-01|isbn=0140170960]

He speaks French.

Early career

In Detroit, on radio's "The Lone Ranger", Lipton portrayed the Lone Ranger's nephew, Dan Reid, during the early 1940s. Moving to New York, he was a writer for several soap operas, "Another World", "The Edge of Night", "Guiding Light", "Return to Peyton Place" and "Capitol", as well as acting for over ten years on "Guiding Light". He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's film, "The Big Break", a 1953 crime drama.

Lipton was the book writer and lyricist for the 1967 Broadway musical "Sherry!" based on the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play "The Man Who Came to Dinner". The score and orchestrations were lost for over 30 years, and the original cast was never recorded. In 2003 a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Michael Myers, and others) renewed interest in the show.

His book of terms of venery, "An Exaltation of Larks", was published in 1968.

In 1983 Lipton published his novel "Mirrors" which is about the lives of dancers. He later wrote and produced it as a TV movie. In television, Lipton has produced some two dozen specials including: twelve Bob Hope Birthday Specials; "The Road to China", an NBC entertainment special produced in China; and the first time ever televised presidential inaugural gala, for Jimmy Carter.¹

The Actors Studio and "Inside the Actors Studio"

In the mid-1990s Lipton sought to create a three year educational program for actors that would be a distillation of what he had learned in the twelve years of his own intensive studies. In 1994 he arranged for the Actors Studio -- the home base of "method acting" in the USA for some sixty years now -- to join with New York City's New School University, to form the Actors Studio Drama School, a formal degree-granting program at the graduate level.

Lipton created a project within the Actors Studio drama school: a non-credit class called "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994) where successful and accomplished actors, directors and writers would be interviewed and would answer questions from acting students. These sessions were also taped and broadcast on television for the general public to see. Lipton himself hosts the show and conducts the main interview.

Later career

Lipton occasionally appears in comedy sketches on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". One of his appearances featured a sketch in which he performed a dramatic recitation of the lyrics from the song "PopoZão"' from the then-unreleased Kevin Federline album, and on St. Patrick's Day he shotgunned a can of beer in celebration of Spring Break. Recently he appeared on a sketch called "Where the hell is James Lipton?", where he hides somewhere in the studio and has to be found. On a recent episode, Conan needed to forget a hot belly dancing guest so he had James Lipton on as a belly dancer. He has also played an acting-obsessed prison warden on several episodes of the sitcom "Arrested Development".

He has starred in a number of humorous television commercials for DC Shoes and Geico auto insurance. These ads parody his own show. His book, "Inside Inside" (2007), combines autobiography with reflections on "Inside the Actor's Studio".

Popular culture references

*Lipton, as the host of "Inside the Actor's Studio", has been parodied on various sketch comedy shows, the first being "Mr. Show" in a portrayal by David Cross. The scenes showed Lipton washing guests' feet and overreacting to the performances of spoiled, dimwitted celebrities. In one show, Lipton grilled Garrison Keillor so mercilessly that Keillor had to be sedated, which initiated a long-standing blood feud. Cross was even more direct and scathing about Lipton during a bit in his standup act during the mid-1990s. According to DVD commentaries, this caused awkward moments when Lipton guest-starred on "Arrested Development", a series in which Cross starred, and the two were pitted opposite each other in several scenes.

*Will Ferrell portrayed Lipton in a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches, exaggerating his quiet intensity and obsequious style of interviewing famous actors. Most of the "actors" interviewed by Ferrell's Lipton are "Z" list celebrities (portrayed by an "SNL" regular or a guest host) who are humorously, excessively praised for the most banal film or television performances. Some of these interviewees include Drew Barrymore, Dustin Diamond of "Saved by the Bell" and Charles Nelson Reilly, played by Kate Hudson, Tobey Maguire and Alec Baldwin respectively. Lipton himself likes Ferrell's parody and told on several occasions how it is his favorite impression.

*On "Chappelle's Show", Lipton's show was parodied as "Inside the Chappelle Studio". In a later edition of "Inside the Actor's Studio", where Dave Chappelle himself would be the guest star, Lipton asked Chappelle "where are my fucking royalties?", at which point Chappelle peeled off two hundred dollar bills and handed them to Lipton. They would later engage in a rather peculiar dance-off [cite web|accessdate=2008-05-12|url=http://needsinspiration.blogspot.com/2006/02/whats-better-than-liza-miniellis.html|title=What's better than Liza Minielli's favorite swear word?|publisher=Needs Inspiration|date=2006-02-12] . Lipton was also parodied on an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", where show host Michael J. Nelson lost his mind and believed he was Lipton hosting "Inside the Actors Studio." He asked a series of inane interview questions to Crow T. Robot, mistaking him for Ray Liotta, until he was snapped back to reality by the use of a "clown hammer".

*Richard Christy of the "Howard Stern Show" has a parody show called "Inside the Porn Actors Studio" which began on May 15, 2006 featuring porn actress Hillary Scott. The show airs periodically on Sirius Satellite Radio.

*Lipton played himself on a 2002 episode of "The Simpsons", "The Sweetest Apu." Rainier Wolfcastle was the featured guest opposite Lipton, but the interview ended badly when an in-character (as McBain) Wolfcastle pulled out a gun and shot Lipton ("It was a pleasure to eat your lead, good sir!" he proclaims before expiring.)

*Lipton was interviewed in an episode of the "Da Ali G Show" titled "Art" on March 14, 2003. At the end of the show, Lipton performed a couple of lines of a self-written rap.

*Lipton was portrayed by both Will Sasso and Paul Vogt on the Fox comedy sketch-show "MADtv".

*Lipton was portrayed in "" interviewing Stewie and after laughing asks "And what is your favorite curse word" after Stewie said a curse.

*In 2007, Lipton appeared in a television ad for Geico Insurance.

*Lipton is also featured as a LEGO character on X-Entertainment's yearly Advent Calendar feature.

*The character Captain Monty of the animated television show American Dad! is also a parody on Lipton, resembling him both in likeness and speech.

*In the episode Swan Song on the Gilmore Girls, Rory is showing Jess her copy of "The Holy Barbarians" by Lawrence Lipton, and says that he is "the father of the guy that does those Actor’s Studio interviews on TV," to which Jess responds, "it’s weird that a beatniky guy would have a conservative son like that"

*An episode of Frank TV showed James Lipton (played by Frank Caliendo) interviewing Al Pacino (also played by Frank).

*"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Couch Potato" (a parody of Eminem's song "Lose Yourself") on the album Poodle Hat has a line "Look, there's James Lipton discussing the oeuvre of Mr. Rob Schneider."

ee also

*Bernard Pivot

References

External links

* [http://www.bravotv.com/Inside_the_Actors_Studio/host?page=1 Bravo biography]
*imdb name|id=0513851|name=James Lipton