Andre Gregory

Last updated

Andre Gregory
Born
Andre William Gregory

(1934-05-11) May 11, 1934 (age 86)
Paris, France
OccupationActor, director, writer
Years active1981–present
Known for My Dinner with Andre
Spouse(s)Mercedes "Chiquita" Nebelthau
(died 1992)
​
​
(m. 2000)​
Children2

Andre William Gregory (born May 11, 1934) is a French-born American theatre director, writer and actor. As of 2020, his latest film is Jonathan Demme's A Master Builder , based on Henrik Ibsen's play. [1] Gregory studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.

Contents

Life and career

Gregory was born in Paris, France, in 1934 to Russian Jewish parents. [2] [3] He studied at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was Alice in Wonderland (1970), based on Lewis Carroll's two classic Alice books. He founded his own theatrical company, The Manhattan Project, in 1968. In 1975 he directed Our Late Night, the first produced play by Wallace Shawn, which began a long working relationship between the two men.

Shortly afterward, Gregory's growing misgivings about the role of theatre in modern life, and what he felt was a trend toward fascism in the United States, led him to abruptly abandon theatre and leave the country. As described in the film My Dinner with Andre (1981), he traveled to Poland at director Jerzy Grotowski's invitation, where he developed a number of experimental theatrical events for private audiences. He spent several years in a variety of esoteric spiritual communities (such as Findhorn) developing an interest and practice in what could be called New Age beliefs.

Although Gregory left the theatre in 1975, he has returned several times to direct small productions, usually for invited audiences. These included a long-running workshop of Uncle Vanya (adapted by David Mamet), which was developed from 1990 to 1994 and featured Shawn and Julianne Moore. Though never publicly performed, it was released as the film Vanya on 42nd Street by Gregory and Louis Malle. He appeared as himself, directing the play featured within the film. Gregory also directed a radio production of Shawn's play, The Designated Mourner, in 2002.

He has had occasional film roles as a character actor, including John the Baptist in The Last Temptation of Christ and Reverend Spellgood in The Mosquito Coast , and as Dante, a restaurateur, alongside Rosanna Arquette, David Bowie, and Buck Henry in The Linguini Incident .

His best-known film performance was as the title character in My Dinner with Andre (1981), directed by Louis Malle, in which he and Wallace Shawn, playing characters based on themselves, have a long conversation over dinner. They discuss Gregory's spiritual sojourn in Europe and his doubts about the future of theatre and of Western civilization in general. He appeared with Goldie Hawn in Protocol (1984). In 1988 he played the father in Some Girls, with Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Dempsey. In 1993, he performed in the movie Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone.

Returning to theatre, Gregory directed Shawn's play Grasses of a Thousand Colors, which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in May 2009. He next worked with Shawn on a new version of Ibsen's The Master Builder . [4] This resulted in the film Fear of Falling (2013), directed by Jonathan Demme. The film was retitled A Master Builder at its opening in New York in June 2014.

In 2013, he directed Grasses of a Thousand Colors and The Designated Mourner, starring Shawn in a co-production between Theatre for a New Audience and The Public Theater in New York. [5]

A 2013 documentary about Gregory's life, Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner , was directed by his wife, Cindy Kleine. [6] He and Kleine discussed it on the May 3, 2013, episode of Charlie Rose . [7]

In May 2020, Gregory released his memoir, This Is Not My Memoir (with Todd London; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN   9780374298548). [8]

Marriage and family

Gregory was first married to Mercedes "Chiquita" Nebelthau, a documentary filmmaker who died in 1992. They had two children together, Nicolas and Marina. [9]

Partial filmography

Related Research Articles

Wallace Shawn American actor, voice artist, playwright, and essayist

Wallace Michael Shawn is an American actor, voice artist, comedian, playwright and essayist. His film roles have included those of Wally Shawn in the Louis Malle-directed drama My Dinner with Andre (1981), Vizzini in The Princess Bride (1987), Mr. James Hall in Clueless (1995) and the voice of Rex in the Toy Story franchise. He has also had roles in Woody Allen's films Manhattan (1979), Radio Days (1987), Shadows and Fog (1991), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), Melinda and Melinda (2004) and Rifkin's Festival (2020). He has appeared in a variety of television series, including recurring roles as Grand Nagus Zek in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999), Cyrus Rose in Gossip Girl (2008–2012), and Dr. John Sturgis in Young Sheldon (2018–).

<i>Atlantic City</i> (1980 film)

Atlantic City is a 1980 romantic crime film directed by Louis Malle and starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Robert Joy, Hollis McLaren, Michel Piccoli, and Al Waxman. A Canadian-French co-production filmed in late 1979, it was released in France and Germany in September 1980 and in the United States later that year by Paramount Pictures. The script was written by John Guare.

Timothy West English film, stage, and television actor

Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English film, stage, presenter and television actor, with more than fifty years of varied work in the business. As well as many classical theatre performances, he has appeared frequently on television, including spells in both Coronation Street and EastEnders, and also in Not Going Out, as the original Geoffrey Adams. He is married to the actress Prunella Scales; since 2014 they have been seen travelling together on British and overseas canals in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.

Ralph Fiennes English actor, producer, and director

Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre.

John Murrell, OC, AOE was an American-born Canadian playwright.

Louis Malle

Louis Marie Malle was a French film director, screenwriter and producer. His film Le Monde du silence won the Palme d'Or in 1956 and the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1957, although he was not credited at the ceremony; the award was instead presented to the film's co-director Jacques Cousteau. Later in his career he was nominated multiple times for Academy Awards. Malle is also one of only four directors to have won the Golden Lion twice.

<i>Melinda and Melinda</i>

Melinda and Melinda is a 2004 American comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. It premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The film is set in Manhattan and stars Radha Mitchell as the protagonist Melinda, in two storylines; one comic, one tragic. The film began a limited release in the United States on March 18, 2005.

<i>Ghosts</i> (play) Play written by H. Ibsen

Ghosts is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, in a production by a Danish company on tour. Like many of Ibsen's plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th-century morality. Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and negative criticism. Since then the play has fared better, and is considered a “great play” that historically holds a position of “immense importance”. Theater critic Maurice Valency wrote in 1963, "From the standpoint of modern tragedy Ghosts strikes off in a new direction.... Regular tragedy dealt mainly with the unhappy consequences of breaking the moral code. Ghosts, on the contrary, deals with the consequences of not breaking it."

<i>Uncle Vanya</i>

Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.

<i>Vanya on 42nd Street</i>

Vanya on 42nd Street is a 1994 American film directed by Louis Malle, written by Andre Gregory, and starring Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore. The film is an intimate, interpretive performance of the 1899 play Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov as adapted by David Mamet.

<i>My Dinner with Andre</i> 1981 film by Louis Malle

My Dinner with Andre is a 1981 American comedy-drama film directed by Louis Malle, and written by and starring Andre Gregory (Andre) and Wallace Shawn (Wally). The actors play fictionalized versions of themselves sharing a conversation at Café des Artistes in Manhattan. The film's dialogue covers topics such as experimental theatre, the nature of theatre, and the nature of life, and contrasts Wally's modest humanism with Andre's spiritual experiences.

<i>The Master Builder</i> Play by Henrik Ibsen

The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.

A master builder or master mason was the central figure leading construction projects in pre-modern times, thus, a precursor to the modern architect and engineer.

The Designated Mourner is a play written by Wallace Shawn in 1996, which was adapted into a film directed by David Hare in 1997.

Larry Pine

Larry Pine is an American actor.

<i>The Lady from the Sea</i>

The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen inspired by the ballad Agnete og Havmanden. The drama is notable in the Ibsen corpus for introducing the portrayal of Hilde Wangel who is again portrayed in Ibsen's later play The Master Builder. The character portrayal of Hilde Wangel has been portrayed twice in contemporary film as a culturally relevant portrayal, most recently in the 2014 film titled A Master Builder.

The New Group is an artist-driven company with a commitment to developing and producing powerful, contemporary theater. Founded by Artistic Director Scott Elliott, The New Group produced its first play, Mike Leigh's Ecstasy, in 1995. Notable productions include This Is Our Youth, Curtains, Goose Pimples, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Hurlyburly, Abigail's Party, Rafta, Rafta..., The Starry Messenger, and A Lie of the Mind, The Kid, Intimacy, The Sticks and Bones, and The Spoils.

Vanessa Kirby English actress

Vanessa Noola Kirby is an English actress. For her role as Princess Margaret in the Netflix period drama series The Crown (2016–2017), she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She has also starred in several stage productions, earning three nominations for the Ian Charleson Awards, with Matt Trueman of Variety describing her as "the outstanding stage actress of her generation, capable of the most unexpected choices."

<i>A Master Builder</i>

A Master Builder is a 2013 film directed by Jonathan Demme, based on Henrik Ibsen's 1892 play The Master Builder. The film was released in the United States in June 2014 and stars Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty, Lisa Joyce and Andre Gregory. The film is a production of the Ibsen play dealing with the relationship between an aging architect and a younger woman. The play originally premiered in 1893.

Robert Icke is an English writer and theatre director. He has been referred to as the "great hope of British theatre."

References

  1. ↑ Ciampaglia, Dante A. (August 1, 2014). "Film Review: A Master Builder". Architectural Record .
  2. ↑ "American Theatre – March 2005". Theatre Communications Group. July 22, 2002. Archived from the original on November 13, 2013. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  3. ↑ Karras, Steven (August 21, 2012). "Our Phone Call With André". Web2Carz. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  4. ↑ Hernandez, Ernio (May 1, 2006). "The Master Builder on 42nd Street? Shawn and Gregory Reteaming on Ibsen Classic". Playbill . Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  5. ↑ "The Wallace Shawn-André Gregory Project | Theatre for a New Audience". Theatre for a New Audience . Retrieved April 10, 2014.
  6. ↑ Holden, Stephen (April 2, 2013). "Some Dessert, After That Meal With Wally". The New York Times.
  7. ↑ 'Andre Gregory: Before And After Dinner'. Charlie Rose . May 2, 2013.
  8. ↑ "This Is Not My Memoir | André Gregory | Macmillan". US Macmillan. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  9. ↑ "Mercedes Gregory, Film Maker, Dead; Documentarian, 56". The New York Times. February 12, 1992. Retrieved April 10, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.