In Actors and Method, Italian academic Mariapaola Pierini looks back on the first generation of film stars associated with method acting. First published in 2006, the book has now been reissued by Editrice Zona.

“Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are the first Hollywood stars linked to the Stanislavski Method. The book investigates the problem of acting ‘according to the Method’ through the analysis of some of their most significant theatrical and cinematographic performances. From the end of the 1940s, and thanks to cinema, the American version of Stanislavski’s System had unprecedented prominence and diffusion, which was followed by inevitable distortions and mystifications. To better understand the real impact of a thought on acting it is necessary to investigate that precise historical moment in which a certain cultural climate and some actors more sensitive to grasping its substance came into contact with the world of entertainment. From this perspective, Clift, Brando, Dean and Marilyn Monroe appear not so much as the stars of the Actors Studio, but as actors who have, in different and sometimes contradictory ways, expressed a point of view on their craft, on the art of acting , on theater and cinema.”

Advertisement

Marilyn is the only woman among the four actors featured. While several other women who studied with Lee Strasberg at this time also broke into movies, it can be argued that only Marilyn – already a Hollywood superstar – rivalled the iconic status of her male peers.

Montgomery Clift, one of the first invited to join the Actors Studio, was a success in the theatre before making his movie debut, and retained a degree of independence from both Hollywood and the Method. Marlon Brando, who also made his name on Broadway, had studied with Stella Adler, whose interpretation of Stanislavski’s philosophy diverged from Strasberg’s approach to acting.

Marilyn would co-star with Clift in The Misfits, and counted Brando as a friend. However, she also had much in common with the youngest of the group, James Dean, who moved from television to the big screen – and was perhaps more directly influenced by Strasberg’s teachings than either Brando or Clift.

Although she was never close to him personally, the Method also became part of the Monroe myth – and as with Dean, an early death cemented her place in popular culture.