Mailing Contact: 2109 S. Wilbur Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362
E-mail: Time Machine Collectibles Fax: 509-525-0393
Jeff Corey's memoir is now available.
"Improvising out Loud: My Life Teaching Hollywood How to Act"
by Jeff Corey with Emily Corey; Foreword by Leonard Nimoy
Website:
http://www.improvisingoutloud.com
Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/jeffcoreyimprovisingoutloud/
Link to Amazon Pre-Order:
Jeff Corey's career began in Shakespearean repertory
in New York. In 1937 He played Rosencrantz in
Leslie Howard's Hamlet. Subsequent
N.Y. productions included Life and Death of
an American, and Transit.
Corey came to Hollywood in 1940 and helped
establish the Actors Lab, under whose aegis he
performed in Abe Lincoln in Illinois,
Declaration, Miss Julie,
To The Living,
Prometheus, and also produced
Juno and the Paycock. He toured with
Ann Sothern in God Bless Our Bank,
and played Alfieri in the La Jolla production of
A View From the Bridge. Mr. Corey
also performed in a production of In the
Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, at the
Mark Taper Forum, and played Polonius in the
Taper's production of Hamlet. In
describing Mr. Corey's performance as King Lear
at the North Shore Playhouse in Massachusetts,
Pulitzer Prize winning critic William Henry III
wrote, "In the part Charles Lamb called
unplayable, he is magnificent."
Corey has appeared in over a hundred features,
including Home of the Brave,
The Devil and Daniel Webster,
My Friend Flicka, Bright
Leaf with Gary Cooper, Joan of
Arc with Ingrid Bergman, The
Killers, Brute Force,
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Seconds, Mickey One,
Getting Straight, The
Cincinnati Kid, In Cold Blood,
Beneath the Planet of the Apes,
Bird on a Wire, Color of
Night, and Surviving the Game.
He has also performed in True Grit
and Wake of the Red Witch, with John
Wayne, as well as delivering a memorable
characterization of Wild Bill Hickock opposite
Dustin Hoffman in Little Big Man.
On television Jeff Corey was a regular on NBC's
Helltown, and the CBS series
Morning Star/Evening Star. He has
made guest star appearances in Star
Trek, Roseanne, Barney
Miller, Knott's Landing,
Baba, Gunsmoke,
Archie Bunker's Place, Outer
Limits, The A-Team,
Rawhide, Night Gallery,
Hawaii Five-0, Jake and the
Fatman, Kojak, One Day at
a Time, Babylon Five, and
Lou Grant. In 1976 he played Andrew
Jackson in the bicentennial Land of the
Free.
As a director, Corey has amassed such credits as
The Psychiatrist, Night
Gallery, Sixth Sense,
Alias Smith and Jones, Sons and
Daughters, Meeting of the Minds
for PBS, as well as Anna and the King,
with Yul Brynner.
Mr. Corey's Professional Actors Workshop,
attended for many years by Hollywood's most
talented actors, directors, and screenwriters,
has been described by Washington's The
National Observer as, "A major
influence in the motion picture industry."
He was appointed Professor of Theater Arts at
California State University in Northridge, and
was artist in residence at Ball State, in
Indiana, The University of Illinois in
Bloomington, Chapman College's World Campus
Afloat, the University of Texas in Austin, and
the Graduate School of Creative Writing at N.Y.U.
He has conducted seminars at Emory University in
Atlanta, and for the Canadian Film Institute in
Vancouver, British Columbia.
Jeff Corey was also awarded three citations for
his work as a motion picture combat photographer
in World War II. In October 1945 he received a
citation from Secretary of the Navy James
Forrestal and Captain Edward Steichen with the
following commendation, "His sequence of a
Kamikaze attempt on the Carrier Yorktown, done in
the face of grave danger, is one of the great
picture sequences of the war in the Pacific, and
reflects the highest credit upon Corey and the
U.S. Navy Photographic Service."
1914 - 2002
He will be missed by all.
LA Times Article August 18th
Jeff
Corey, 88; Blacklist Led Actor to Teaching
His list of students is a who's who of the
Hollywood elite since
the 1950's. They include James Dean, Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda and Jack
Nicholson.
"Acting is life study, and Corey's classes got me into looking at life as
an artist." Jack Nicholson
By
JON THURBER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Jeff
Corey, a gifted actor who was blacklisted for refusing to name names before
the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950s but emerged as one
of the most sought-after teachers in Hollywood, has died. He was 88.
Perhaps best-known for his post-blacklist roles in "Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid," "In Cold Blood," "Little Big Man" and
on the TV sitcoms "One Day at a Time" and "Night Court,"
Corey died Friday morning at St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica of
complications from a fall earlier in the week at his home in Malibu.
To generations of actors, directors and writers, Corey's name on the blacklist
didn't mean a thing. They came to his informal classes for his insightful
ideas on the craft of acting and views on how to handle challenging roles.
His list of students makes up a who's who of the Hollywood elite since the
1950s and includes James Dean, Anthony Perkins, Shirley Knight, Jane Fonda,
Peter Fonda, Robert Blake, Leonard Nimoy, Robin Williams, Rob Reiner, Robert
Towne, Roger Corman, Penny Marshall, Taylor Hackford and a young Jack
Nicholson.
"Acting is life study, and Corey's classes got me into looking at life as
an artist," Nicholson said years later.
Those who knew Corey's teaching process said he was a Stanislavsky Method
teacher but with a small "m." His process was eclectic and involved
one-on-one work with an actor. He created improvisational exercises that
allowed actors to engage their imaginations and subconscious minds in pursuit
of a theme that they could apply to their roles.
Corey was always pursuing a current underlying emotional and psychological
theme in the actor's work. And in doing that, he was trying to help the actor
relate to the here and now rather than the arcane notion of the character's
circumstances.
"I tell my students, 'Respect the instrument. It is you doing the
acting,' " Corey told The Times some years ago. "By all means, you
must be responsive to the meaning of the play, to what the author meant and to
what the audience will ultimately see. Engage your own intuition, use your own
frames of reference and give something which is uniquely yours; put something
rich into your performance rather than some external result that hasn't got
your face. Simplicity is the cherished quality."
Corey didn't set out to be a teacher. An indifferent student in high school in
New York City, he took a drama class and became intrigued with acting. He
earned a scholarship to the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts, then a leading
theater school in New York City, which he later said kept him from a career
selling sewing machines. From there, he did work in Shakespearean repertory
and then worked with a traveling children's theater troupe. His first meaty
stage role was in Leslie Howard's touring production of "Hamlet," in
which he played Rosencrantz.
Corey and his wife moved to Los Angeles, and he found work, appearing in 23
films from 1940 to 1943, including "The Devil and Daniel Webster,"
"My Friend Flicka," and "Joan of Arc." He joined the Navy
in 1943 and was assigned to the ship Yorktown as a combat photographer. He
earned citations for some footage he shot during a kamikaze attack on the
ship.
After the war, Corey returned to Hollywood and resumed his busy career playing
heavies in such films as "The Killers" and "Brute Force."
He also played the role of a psychiatrist in "Home of the Brave,"
one of his best performances.
Corey seemed ready for even better film parts as the second lead or top
character actor, when he was subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee
on Un-American Activities, which had been investigating Communist influence in
Hollywood since 1947.
The actor was scheduled to appear at the hearing in downtown Los Angeles in
September 1951. He was 37 and had a wife and three daughters to support. But
he took the 5th Amendment and didn't work again as an actor in Hollywood for
more than a decade, missing out on countless movie opportunities and what
would later be considered the golden age of television.
"Most of us were retired reds. We had left it, at least I had, years
before," Corey told Patrick McGilligan, the co-author of "Tender
Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist" who also teaches film
at Marquette University. "The only issue was, did you want to just give
them their token names so you could continue your career, or not? I had no
impulse to defend a political point of view that no longer interested me
particularly .... They just wanted two new names so they could hand out more
subpoenas."
He found work as a laborer earning $14 a day and enrolled as a freshman at
UCLA on the GI Bill. He eventually earned a degree in speech therapy. Corey
would later say that he fell into teaching somewhat by accident. He said a
student who was failing miserably in another program organized the first class
and talked him into teaching it, which he did in the garage of his Hollywood
Hills home. Carol Burnett, then a freshman at UCLA, was among the students.
Word of mouth kept the classes going as Corey, a self-effacing man, didn't
promote himself or advertise and did little to encourage enrollment. By the
mid-1950s, he was the most sought-after acting coach in Hollywood. Studios
that would not hire Corey as an actor because of the blacklist actively sent
their young talent to study with him.
Corey himself wouldn't start working again in films until 1962, when he was
offered parts in the films "The Balcony" and "The Yellow
Canary." One of his students, Pat Boone, helped him get the part in
"The Yellow Canary" by talking the legal department at Fox into
taking him on.Over the next 35 years, Corey appeared in more than 70 films or
television series. He also got chances to direct. According to McGilligan,
Corey was "an actor's actor, someone that actors loved to watch because
he was always doing something interesting in his work."
"Jeff was articulate about ideas, provocative and inspirational,"
McGilligan told The Times on Saturday. "He was a wonderful actor who we
never fully got to see because of the blacklist."
Corey is survived by Hope, his wife of 64 years; three daughters, Eve Corey
Poling of Atlanta; Jane Corey of Elk, Calif., and Emily Corey of Los Angeles;
and six grandchildren.
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FILMS (Link to IMDB)
Filmography
Lottery, The (1996) (TV) .... Albert Smith
Color of Night (1994) .... Ashland
Surviving the Game (1994) .... Hank
Beethoven's 2nd (1993) .... Janitor
Judas Project, The (1993) .... Poneras
Ruby Cairo (1993) .... Joe Dick
... aka Deception (1993)
... aka Missing Link: Ruby Cairo, The (1993)
Sinatra (1992) (TV) .... Quinlin
Payoff (1991) (TV) .... Don Anzia
To My Daughter (1990) (TV) .... Travis
Bird on a Wire (1990) .... Lou Baird
Rose and the Jackal, The (1990) (TV)
Tajna manastirske rakije (1989) .... Colonel Frazier
... aka Secret Ingredient (1989)
Messenger of Death (1988) .... Willis Beecham
Second Serve (1986) (TV) .... Dr. Harry
Benjamin
... aka I Change My Life (1986) (TV)
Creator (1985) .... Dean Harrington
Father of Hell Town (1985) (TV) .... Lawyer
Sam
Final Jeopardy (1985) (TV) .... Derelict
Conan the Destroyer (1984)
Sword and the Sorcerer, The (1982) ....
Craccus
Cry for the Strangers (1982) (TV)
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) .... Zed
Homeward Bound (1980) (TV) .... George
Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) ....
Sheriff Bledsoe
Up River (1979) .... Bagshaw
Wild Geese, The (1978) .... Mr. Martin
Harold Robbins' The Pirate (1978) (TV) ....
Prince Feiyad
... aka Pirate, The (1978) (TV)
Jennifer (1978) .... Luke Baylor
... aka Jennifer the Snake Goddess (1978)
Curse of the Black Widow (1977) (TV) .... Aspa
... aka Love Trap (1977/II) (TV)
Moonshine County Express (1977) .... Hagen
Oh, God! (1977) .... Rabbi
Last Tycoon, The (1976) .... Doctor
Premonition, The (1976) .... Det. Lt. Mark
Denver
Paper Tiger (1975) .... Mr. King
Set This Town on Fire (1973) (TV)
... aka Profane Comedy, The (1973) (TV)
Something Evil (1972) (TV) .... Gehrmann
Shootout (1971) .... Trooper
Catlow (1971) .... Merridew
... aka Oro de nadie, El (1971) (Spain)
Clay Pigeon (1971)
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) ....
Caspay
... aka Planet of the Apes Revisited (1970) (USA)
... aka Planet of the Men (1970) (USA)
Clear and Present Danger, A (1970) (TV) ....
Beiseker
Cover Me Babe (1970)
... aka Run Shadow Run (1970)
Getting Straight (1970) .... Dr. Willhunt
Impasse (1970) .... Wombat
Little Big Man (1970) .... Wild Bill Hickok
They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) .... Capt.
Hank Marden
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) ....
Sheriff Bledsoe
True Grit (1969) .... Tom Chaney
Boston Strangler, The (1968) .... John
Asgeirsson
In Cold Blood (1967) .... Mr. Hickock
Seconds (1966) .... Mr. Ruby
Once a Thief (1965) .... Lt. Kebner
Cincinnati Kid, The (1965) .... Hoban
Mickey One (1965) .... Fryer
Lady in a Cage (1964) .... George L. Brady Jr.
Balcony, The (1963)
Yellow Canary (1963)
Superman and the Mole Men (1951) .... Luke
Benson
... aka Superman and the Strange People (1951)
Only the Valiant (1951) .... Joe Harmony
Fourteen Hours (1951) .... Sergeant Farley
Never Trust a Gambler (1951) .... Lou Brecker
New Mexico (1951) .... Coyote
Prince Who Was a Thief, The (1951) .... Emir
Mokar
Rawhide (1951) .... Lake Davis
... aka Desperate Siege (1951)
Red Mountain (1951) .... Skee
Bright Leaf (1950) .... John Barton
Nevadan, The (1950)
... aka Man from Nevada, The (1950)
Next Voice You Hear, The (1950) .... Freddie
Dibson
Singing Guns (1950) .... Richards
Bagdad (1949) .... Mohammed Jao
City Across the River (1949) .... Lieutenant
Macon
Follow Me Quietly (1949) .... Sgt. Art Collins
Hideout (1949) .... Beecham
Home of the Brave (1949) .... Doctor
Kidnapped (1948) .... Shuan
Alias a Gentleman (1948) .... Zu
Canon City (1948) .... Schwartzmiller
Joan of Arc (1948) .... Prison Guard
Southern Yankee, A (1948) .... Union Cavalry
Sergeant
... aka My Hero (1948)
Wake of the Red Witch (1948) .... Mr. Loring
Wreck of the Hesperus, The (1948)
Unconquered (1947) (uncredited) .... Trapper
Ramrod (1947) .... Bice
Brute Force (1947) .... Freshman
Gangster, The (1947) .... Brother-in-law
Hoppy's Holiday (1947) .... Jed
Miracle on 34th Street (1947) (uncredited)
.... Reporter
... aka Big Heart, The (1947)
Killers, The (1946) (uncredited) .... Blinky
Franklin ... aka Man Alone, A (1946)
Somewhere in the Night (1946)
California (1946) (uncredited) .... Man
It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog (1946) .... Sam
Black
... aka It Couldn't Happen to a Dog (1946) (UK)
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
(uncredited) .... Bit Part
Moon Is Down, The (1943) (uncredited) ....
Albert
My Friend Flicka (1943) .... Tim Murphy
Man Who Wouldn't Die, The (1942) .... Coroner
Larson
North to the Klondike (1942) .... Man
Postman Didn't Ring, The (1942) .... Harwood
Green
Roxie Hart (1942) (uncredited) .... Orderly
Who Is Hope Schuyler? (1942) .... Medical
Examiner
Reluctant Dragon, The (1941)
... aka Behind the Scenes at Walt Disney Studio
(1941)
Devil and Daniel Webster, The (1941) .... Tom
Sharp
... aka All That Money Can Buy (1941)
... aka Certain Mr. Scratch, A (1941)
... aka Daniel and the Devil (1941)
... aka Here Is a Man (1941)
Lady from Cheyenne, The (1941) (uncredited)
.... Reporter
Mutiny in the Arctic (1941) .... The Cook
Petticoat Politics (1941) .... Henry Trotter
Small Town Deb (1941) .... Hector
You Belong to Me (1941) (uncredited) .... Man
... aka Good Morning, Doctor (1941)
You'll Find Out (1940) .... Mr. Corey
... aka Here Come the Boogie Men (1940)
Director Filmography
Night Gallery (1970) TV Series
... aka Rod Serling's Night Gallery
(1970) (USA)
Television
Nothing Sacred (1997)
Murphy Brown (1997
Babylon 5 (1994) playing
Justin in episode:   
Z'ha'dum (episode # 3.22) 10/28/1996
Picket Fences (1992) playing
Cancer Patient in episode:    This
Little Piggy 12/15/1995
Roseanne (1988) playing
salesman in episode:    Death and
Stuff (episode # 1.21) 4/11/1989
War of the Worlds (1988) playing
Francis Flannery in episode:   
Eye For An Eye (episode # 1.6)
10/31/1988
A-Team, The (1983) playing
AJ 1986
Whiz Kids (1983) playing
Martin Beal in episode:    Watch
Out! (episode # 1.11) 1/14/1984
Bionic Woman, The (1976) in
episode:    Daemon Creature, The 1976
Bob Newhart Show, The (1972)
playing Dr. Scott Rivers in episode:   
Old Man Rivers 1973
Night Gallery (1970) playing
Dr. Miles Talmadge in episode:   
Dead Man, The (episode # 1.1)
12/16/1970
Bonanza (1959) in episode:   
Single Pilgrim, A (episode # 12.15)
1970
Star Trek (1966) playing
Plasus in episode:   
Cloudminders, The (episode # 3.19)
2/28/1969
Gunsmoke (1955) playing
Judge Procter in episode:    Night
Riders, The (episode # 14.22) 2/24/1969
Wild, Wild West, The (1965) in
episode:    Night of the Underground Terror,
The (episode # 3.19) 1/19/1968
Garrison's Gorillas (1967) playing
Insp. Gauzmann in episode:   
Grab, The 1967
Wild, Wild West, The (1965)
playing Captain Ansel Coffin in
episode:    Night of a Thousand Eyes,
The (episode # 1.6)
10/22/1965
Perry Mason (1957) playing
Bascom in episode:    Case of the
Reckless Rock Hound, The (episode # 8.10)
11/26/1964
Outer Limits, The (1963) playing
Mr. Byron Lomax in episode:   
O.B.I.T. (episode # 1.6) 11/4/1963
Untouchables, The (1959) playing
Max Frimmel in episode:   
Antidote, The (episode # 2.20)
3/9/1961
Spider-Man (1995) playing
Silvermane
Marshal, The (1995)
Streets of San Francisco, The
(1972) playing Ralph Bowen, U.S.
Senator in episode: Shattered Image
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