Kazan on Harold Clurman

Elia Kazan was a hungry ambitious young man. He vaguely wanted to be an actor but the Group didn’t take him on as an actor. He invited himself along on their summer intensives – and made himself useful, and also made himself a nuisance. He was stage manager, he was a delivery boy, he ran around, he built sets, he listened to lectures. He became so useful to the Group that they eventually gave him the nickname that would stick to him for the rest of his life: “Gadget”, or “Gadg”/”Gadge” for short. When Robert DeNiro or Marin Scorsese talk about him, they usually call him “Gadg”.

Harold Clurman, after watching “Gadg” work on some acting scene in a class, called him aside – and gave him advice which ended up being wonderfully prophetic, and which Kazan never forgot.

“You may have a talent for the theatre, but it’s certainly not for acting”.

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