Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:58, 22 March 2008

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "John Houseman" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

John Houseman
Born	Jacques Haussmann
Spouse(s)	Zita Johann (1929–1933) Joan Courtney (1952–1988)

John Houseman (September 22, 1902—October 31, 1988) was an American actor and film producer.

Biography

Personal life

Houseman was born Jacques Haussmann in Bucharest, the son of a British mother of Welsh and Irish descent and an Alsatian-born Jewish father who ran a grain business. He was educated in England at Clifton College before emigrating to the United States in 1925, where he took the stage name of John Houseman. He became a citizen of the U.S. in 1943. Houseman died of spinal cancer in 1988 at his home in Malibu, California. He was 86 years old.

Career

Along with Orson Welles, Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, best remembered for their 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds.

During the Second World War, Houseman worked for the Voice of America, managing its operations in New York.

Houseman produced more than two dozen films, including the 1946 film noir, The Blue Dahlia. He first became widely known to the public, however, for his Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning role as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase, a role which he reprised in the television series of the same name.

He was the Executive Producer of CBS' landmark Seven Lively Arts series. Houseman also played Energy Corporation Executive Bartholomew in the 1975 film Rollerball and parodied Sydney Greenstreet in the 1978 Neil Simon film, The Cheap Detective.

In the 1980s, Houseman was also known for his role as grandfather Edward Stratton II in Silver Spoons, which starred Rick Schroder, and for his commercials for brokerage Smith Barney, which featured the catchphrase, "They make money the old fashioned way...they earn it." He also made a guest appearance in John Carpenter's 1980 movie The Fog as Mr. Machen. He played the Jewish professor Aaron Jastrow in the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War.

Houseman taught acting at The Juilliard School where his first graduating class included Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. Unwilling to see his first class immediately disbanded by the testing world of stage and screen, he formed them into a touring repertory company appropriately named the Group 1 Acting Company. They later shortened their name simply to The Acting Company and are still touring the country today.

In 1988, he appeared in The Naked Gun and Scrooged, which were released after his death.

In February, 2008 filming began on the movie Me and Orson Welles. The film tells the story of Houseman's relationship with Orson Welles when running The Mercury Theatre in New York in the late 1930's. The film is using The Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man to replicate The Mercury.

Filmography

References

1. Magill, Frank Northen (1977). Survey of Contemporary Literature. Salem Pr. Inc. p. 6535. ISBN0893560502. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
2. Houseman, John (1972). Run-Through: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster. p. 15. ISBN. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
3. John Houseman. Encyclopedia Britannica.
4. John Houseman New York Times Movies.
5. [http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ha-Ja/Houseman-John.html John Houseman
6. "The Beginning: An American Voice Greets the World". Voice of America.

External links

• John Houseman at IMDb

• 1902 births
• 1988 deaths
• American film actors
• Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners
• English Americans
• Juilliard School faculty
• Naturalized citizens of the United States
• Old Cliftonians
• People from Bucharest