High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Elia Kazan (IPA: ( listen); September 7, 1909–September 28, 2003) was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated to New York when he was four. After two years studying acting at Yale, he acted professionally for eight years before becoming a stage and film director. Kazan joined the Group Theater in 1932 and co-founded the Actors Studio in 1947. With Lee Strasberg, he introduced Method acting to the American stage and cinema as a new form of self-expression and psychological "realism". Having been an actor himself, he brought sensitivity and understanding of the acting process and was later considered the ideal "actor`s director". Kazan acted in only a few films, including City for Conquest (1940) alongside James Cagney.:watch He also produced movies and wrote screenplays and novels.