Job Actress * Acting teacher
Years active 1915-1949
Known for Withered, old vaguely-European women with some authority
Top Roles Madame von Eln, The Amah, Madame Olga Kirowa, Maleva, Mme. Karina
Top GenresDrama, Romance, Comedy, Film Adaptation, Adventure, Mystery
Top TopicsBook-Based, Monster, Christmas
Top Collaborators (Director), (Director), , (Director)
Shares birthday with Theda Bara, Clara Bow, William Powell  see more..

Maria Ouspenskaya Overview:

Character actress, Maria Ouspenskaya, was born on Jul 29, 1876 in Tula, Russian Empire [now Russia]. Ouspenskaya died at the age of 73 on Dec 3, 1949 in Los Angeles, CA .

MINI BIO:

Wizened, beetle-faced Maria Ouspenskaya was a tiny Russian actress who came to America in the early 1930s to set up an acting school in New York. Despite playing a wide range of diminutive dynamos of varying nationalities, film buffs remember her best as the gypsy woman who teaches poor Lon Chaney the werewolf rhyme in "The Wolf Man". She was twice Oscar-nominated -- for her roles in Dodsworth and Love Affair.  She was tragically burned to death in her Los Angeles apartment.  

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Illustrated Dictionary of Film Character Actors).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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Although Ouspenskaya was nominated for two Oscars, she never won a competitive Academy Award.

Academy Awards

YearAwardFilm nameRoleResult
1936Best Supporting ActressDodsworth (1936)Baroness von ObersdorfNominated
1939Best Supporting ActressLove Affair (1939)Grandmother, Mme. MarnayNominated
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BlogHub Articles:

Russia in Classic Film blogathon:

By Caftan Woman on Mar 8, 2015 From Caftan Woman

as featured in 1940s Beyond Tomorrow July 29, 1876 - December 3, 1949 The Russia in Classic Film Blogathon is being hosted by Fritzi of Movies, Silently and sponsored by The House of Mystery on DVD by Flicker Alley. This fascinating topic runs from March 8 - 10th. Internatio... Read full article


Supporting Players:

By Amanda Garrett on Feb 4, 2015 From Old Hollywood Films

Russian actress is beloved by generations of horror film fans for her role as the Gypsy woman in The Wolf Man (1941), but for two decades she was one of old Hollywood's most respected character actors. Ouspenskaya was probably born on July 29, 1876, (there are some discrepancies... Read full article


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Maria Ouspenskaya Quotes:

Madame Marie von Eln: I only know that you have to judge people by what you find them to be and not by what other people say they are.


Maharani: What is Lady Esketh doing at the hospital?
Thomas 'Tom' Ransome: Every conceivable filthy and drudging task.
Maharani: Yes, I suppose Miss MacDaid would have seen to that.


Maleva: He is not insane. He simply wants to die.


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Best Supporting Actress Oscar 1936






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Maria Ouspenskaya Facts
In 1936 she became the first actress, tied with Gale Sondergaard, of currently 53 actresses to receive an Oscar nomination for their film debut. She was nominated Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Dodsworth (1936).

An actor/instructor with Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre beginning in 1911, she toured throughout Europe during the Communist Revolution and appeared in over 100 plays. When the company departed for Moscow after a tour in the United States, she remained behind.

Co-founder of the American Laboratory Theater with the Polish actor/film director Richard Boleslawski, she was the first Russian actor from the Moscow Art Theatre to teach the Stanislavski Method in the United States. Her methods greatly influenced her young students Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, founders the Group Theater (1931-1940). Strasberg first practiced his very personal variation of the system, now known as "The Method," with the Group actors Stella Adler, Luther Adler, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone, Morris Carnovsky, John Garfield and Robert Lewis. Adler went on to teach Marlon Brando; Meisner taught Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton; Lewis taught Meryl Streep. What the world knows as the psychologically realistic American acting style can be traced

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