Maria Ouspenskaya Movies and Career Information

Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (Russian: Мария Алeкceeвнa Успенская; July 29, 1876 – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress who achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films. Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russia and studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow. She performed extensively in on the Russian stage. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, Ouspenskaya was directed by Constantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his 'system', which in America became "method acting". The Moscow Art Theatre traveled widely throughout Europe, and when it arrived in New York in 1922, she decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade. She taught acting at the American Laboratory Theater and in 1929, together with her colleague from Moscow Art Theatre Ryszard Bolesławski, she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was Anne Baxter, then an unknown teenager. Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya stayed away from Hollywood until her school's financial