Show Business: Strasberg: Applying the Method

Anyone who still believes that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach, should watch Lee Strasberg at work in The Godfather, Part II and repent. The most widely known and respected acting teacher in America turns in a cunning and finely tuned performance as Hyman Roth, a Jewish mobster. Strasberg is 73, and this is his movie debut.

He is best known for his interpretations—some would say distortions—of Stanislavsky’s precepts, practiced most intensely at the Actors Studio in New York City and called casually the Method. Those for whom the Studio and the Method are synonyms of indulgence will be surprised by Strasberg’s thorough, precise approach to his role. “A lot of actors, every time you shoot another take of a scene, they do the same action differently,” says Francis Coppola. “Not Lee. He always did the same thing. He told me, ‘You break your leg, you always break it the same way.’ ” “For me, it was a lark,” reports Strasberg. The idea of casting him in the part came from Al Pacino, his former student. Getting his mentor together with his director, Coppola, was a matter of the most delicate political negotiation.

“Everyone knew there would be a standoff if we met under formal conditions,” says Strasberg, so the meeting was arranged socially. Coppola and Strasberg talked about Toscanini; Coppola’s father had played flute with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Soon afterward, Paramount placed the official call. Strasberg told the studio to make him an offer, which he promptly refused. “Ten thousand dollars—that was silly,” he sniffs.

He held out for more and got $58,000.

-If the idea of working in Godfather II was a lark, working on it was not. Strasberg applied himself to the role according to his own strictest principles of introspection. “In no way did I try to give a sense of the theatrical elements of the Mafia. So I tried to create a façade of not showing emotion, the sense of a man for whom all things were business.” Strasberg also carried elements of Roth over into his own life—a basic article of Strasbergian faith—to flesh out the character.

His wife, Actress Anna Mizrahi, 37, “knew there was something up” when he started to call her “Honey.” He used to bring her rare books or a single rose as gifts. Now he brought nightgowns, amber, whole bouquets.

The results of all this labor were exemplary and work saving. Both he and Coppola were dissatisfied with Roth as written. Neither found the role complete, says Strasberg, “but since somehow I was able to make a character out of it, there was no need to rewrite.”

Mrs. Strasberg confides that “now that the bug has bitten Lee, there’s no holding back,” and her husband admits, “I am just waiting for another good offer.” Some roles that would interest him?

“Freud. Einstein. Even a Kissinger type.”