Lee Strasberg (1901-1982) was best known as a founding member of the Group Theatre and as the main teacher of "Method" acting in the United States.

Lee Strasberg was born Israel Strasberg in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, on November 17, 1901. He was brought to Manhattan's Lower East Side at age seven. Strasberg's father was a garment worker and was active in a trade union which supported community theater. It was in this Yiddish Theatre that Strasberg was first exposed to the naturalistic style of acting. While he was still a young boy he joined the amateur Progressive Dramatic Club, whose leaders were quite familiar with the theories of Constantine Stanislavsky, the great acting coach and director of the Moscow Art Theatre.

After leaving Townsend Harris High School in 1918 to work as a clerk in a wig factory, he studied acting at the American Laboratory Theatre under Richard Boleslavsky...