Maria Ouspenskaya ( ; 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.

Early life

Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russia to a lawyer father. She studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater.

Career

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 travelled 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, and in 1929 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 problems forced her to look for ways to repair her finances. Her first Hollywood role in Dodsworth (1936) brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a second nomination in 1939 for her role in Love Affair. She portrayed Maleva, an old Gypsy fortuneteller in the horror films The Wolf Man (1941) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Her other successes included The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Kings Row (1942).

Death

Ouspenskaya died from a stroke several days after receiving severe burns in a house fire, which she allegedly caused by falling asleep while smoking a cigarette. She was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

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