I went to the Academy and studied with Stuck who was then a big man. But didn't interest me. I didn't know that before me there was Kandinsky and Klee who had also studied with Stuck. He had a good name at that time.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think Kandinsky and I were very near friends.
I had a career. His name was Ike.
I had two wonderful teachers: Sanford Melsner and Fred Kareman.
I had three influential teachers. The first was Uta Hagen. The second two, Bobby Lewis and my late husband, Charles Kakatsakis, were both from the Actors Studio.
A lot of people don't know that my background is completely classical. For a while there, I was all about Moliere and the Greeks and Brecht and Tennessee Williams.
The one man other than my father who made the most lasting impression was an uncle, Serge B. Benson. He taught me in three different classes - but above all, he taught me lessons in moral, physical, and intellectual courage that I have tried to apply in later life.
I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was 'Einstein.'
I went to a regular school, not one of those fame academy things.
I went to drama school in the U.K., where we did endless Chekov plays.
I was a musical theater major at the University of Arizona. And I primarily trained with Marsha Bagwell. It was a classical program, so we did Chekov and Moliere and a lot of Shakespeare.