Sanford Meisner

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Sanford Meisner (August 31, 1905-1905 – February 2, 1997), also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting coach who invented an acting instruction system that is now known as the Meisner technique.

Although Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre, his approach was markedly different in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory, a distinct feature of method acting.

Meisner remained keen on "the act of doing," which was the basis of his approach.

Early life

Meisner was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and Bertha Knoepfler, both Jewish immigrants who immigrated to the United States from Hungary. Jacob, Ruth, and Robert were his younger siblings. Sanford's family took a trip to the Catskills to improve his health during his youth. While Jacob suffered bovine tuberculosis from drinking unpasteurized milk and died shortly afterwards, he continued to drink it. Meisner described this event as "the most significant emotional influence in my life from which I had never recovered in all these years." The young Meisner became isolated and withdrawn because he was unable to cope with feelings of regret relating to his brother's death, for which his parents blamed him.

He found his passion in playing the family piano and then went to the Damrosch Institute of Music (now the Juilliard School), where he studied to become a concert pianist. The Great Depression took him out of music school to help with the family's businesses in New York City's Garment District, but his father refused to help with the family's needs. Meisner later recalled that the only way to avoid long days of fabric was to entertain himself by repeating, in his mind, all the classical piano pieces he had studied in music school. Meisner believed that this exposure helped him develop an acute sense of pitch, similar to the perfect pitch. Later, as an acting teacher, he often assessed his students' classroom work with his pupils' eyes closed and his head buried in his hands. This tactic was only for good, according to the student's teacher's reports, because it helped him more closely monitor his student's work and identify the correct and false moments in their behavior.

Meisner began acting after high school graduation, a passion he had for his youth. He served at the Chrystie Street Settlement House on the Lower East Side under the leadership of Lee Strasberg, who would play a vital role in his formation. Meisner discovered that the Theatre Guild was recruiting teenagers and that, after a brief interview, they were hired as an extra for They Knew What They Wanted. The experience left a profound impression on him, resulting in the realization that acting had always been his life's aspiration. Both he and Strasberg appeared in the original Theatre Guild performance of the Rodgers and Hart revue The Garrick Gaieties, from which the song "Manhattan" came.

Personal life and death

Meisner's two marriages, to Peggy Meredith (née Meyer) and Betty Gooch (each), resulted in divorce. Meisner, a bisexual, spent the remainder of his life with partner James Carville.

Meisner was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1970 and underwent a laryngectomy. He lived for almost three decades before he died in his sleep at the age of 91 at his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, until February 1997.

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