James Lipton Biography
Summary
"James Lipton" (born September 19, 1926) is an American writer, poet, and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series, "Inside the Actors Studio", which debuted in 1994.
Early & personal life
Lipton was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Betty (née Weinberg), a teacher, and journalist Lawrence Lipton. Noted as the author of the popular Beat Generation chronicle, "The Holy Barbarians", Lawrence Lipton was a graphic designer, a columnist for the "Jewish Daily Forward" and a publicity director for a movie theater.
While living in Paris during the post-WWII years, James Lipton became a pimp because he was penniless and unable to get a work permit. In his autobiography, "Inside Inside", Lipton explained that he had a 'thriving business' with tourists, taking nervous young middle-class American couples to see sex exhibitions staged by French prostitutes. Actor Farley Granger describes one such exhibition in his own autobiography, "Include Me Out".
Between 1954 and 1959, Lipton was married to actress Nina Foch. He has been married to Kedakai, a model and real estate broker, since 1970.
Career
In Detroit, on radio's "The Lone Ranger", Lipton portrayed the Lone Ranger's nephew, Dan Reid, during the early 1940s. Moving to New York, he was a writer for several soap operas, "Another World", "The Edge of Night", "Guiding Light" and "Capitol", as well as acting for over ten years on "Guiding Light". He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's film, "The Big Break", a 1953 crime drama.
Lipton was the book writer and lyricist for the 1967 Broadway musical "Sherry!" based on the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play "The Man Who Came to Dinner". The score and orchestrations were lost for over 30 years, and the original cast was never recorded. In 2003 a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Michael Myers, and others) renewed interest in the show.
His book of terms of venery, "An Exaltation of Larks", was published in 1968.
Lipton occasionally appears in comedy sketches on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". One of his appearances featured a sketch in which he performed a dramatic recitation of the lyrics from the song 'PopoZão" from the then-unreleased Kevin Federline album, and on St. Patrick's Day he shotgunned a can of beer in celebration of Spring break. He has also played an acting-obsessed prison warden on several episodes of the sitcom "Arrested Development".
He has starred in a number of humorous television commercials for DC Shoes. These ads parody his own show. His book, "Inside Inside" (2007), combines autobiography with reflections on "Inside the Actor's Studio".
Popular culture references
Lipton, as the host of "Inside the Actor's Studio", has been parodied on various sketch comedy shows, the first being "Mr. Show" in a portrayal by David Cross. The scenes showed Lipton washing guests' feet and overreacting to the performances of spoiled, dimwitted celebrities. Cross was even more direct and scathing about Lipton during a bit in his standup act during the mid-1990s. According to DVD commentaries, this caused awkward moments when Lipton guest-starred on "Arrested Development", a series in which Cross starred, and the two were pitted opposite each other in several scenes.
Will Ferrell portrayed Lipton in a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches, exaggerating his quiet intensity and obsequious style of interviewing famous actors. Most of the 'actors' interviewed by Ferrell's Lipton are 'Z' list celebrities (portrayed by an "SNL" regular or a guest host) who are humorously, excessively praised for the most banal film or television performances. Some of these interviewees include Dustin Diamond of "Saved by the Bell" and Charles Nelson Reilly, played by Tobey Maguire and Alec Baldwin respectively.
On "Chappelle's Show", Lipton's show was parodied as "Inside the Chappelle Studio". In a later edition of Inside the Actor's Studio, where Dave Chappelle himself would be the guest star, Lipton asked Chappelle for his 'fucking royalties' and would later engage in a rather particular dance-off . Lipton was also parodied on an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", where show host Michael J. Nelson lost his mind and believed he was Lipton hosting "Inside the Actors Studio." He asked a series of inane interview questions to Crow T. Robot, mistaking him for Ray Liotta, until he was snapped back to reality by the use of a 'clown hammer'.
Richard Christy of the "Howard Stern Show" has a parody show called 'Inside the Porn Actors Studio' which began on May 15, 2006 featuring porn actress Hillary Scott. The show airs periodically on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Lipton played himself on a 2002 episode of "The Simpsons", 'The Sweetest Apu.' Rainier Wolfcastle was the featured guest opposite Lipton, but the interview ended badly when an in-character (as McBain) Wolfcastle pulled out a gun and shot Lipton ('It was a pleasure to eat your lead, good sir!' he proclaims before expiring.)
Lipton was interviewed in an episode of the "Da Ali G Show" titled 'Art' on March 14, 2003. At the end of the show, Lipton performed a couple of lines of a self-written rap.
Lipton was portrayed by both Will Sasso and Paul Vogt on the Fox comedy sketch-show "MADtv".
External links
(The Bat Segundo Show #150) (2007 podcast interview)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about James Lipton.
