Director/Script: Clare Beavan
Photography: Jeremy Pollard
Editor: Steve Scales
Sound: Bob Briscoe, Sean O'Neil
With: Al Pacino, Eli Wallach, Sally Field, Ellyn Burstyn
Narrator: Jancies Robinson
Producer: Clare Beavan
Executive Producer: Tim Kirby
Series Producer: Janice Hadlow
Production: BBC Television in co-production with A&E Networks
Distribution: BBC Worldwide
First Broadcast: 20.07.1997, BBC2
Selected Filmography: Clare Beavan has been producing and directing TV documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 for 12 Years, she worked on the BBC's nightly Arts programme, the "Late Show" and has made of biographical documentaries for the BBC series "Reputations". Recent subjects include Alfred Kinsey and Billie Jean King.
In the world of film and theatre, few reputations are more bitterly contested than that of Lee Strasberg, the creator of Method Acting. To his champions, he was a pioneer and a guru who created a vibrant new acting style that now dominates American cinema. To his critics he was an irascible egomaniac, a manipulator and exploiter of emotionally vulnerable stars, such as Marylin Monroe. With contributions from many former Strasberg pupils, including Al Pacino, Eli Wallach and Sally Field, Clare Beavan’s BBC documentary examines the life and charts the legacy of one of the most influential hidden forces behind modern American cinema. Featuring examples from Hollywood classics and rare archive material from the “Actors Studio”.