, so I knew him from that. And then he came to the Actors Studio to the playwright-directors unit after Lee Strasberg had died and I learned that he was so much more than a writer. He produced, he directed, he studied ballet dancing and had been a choreographer at one point.
Jim came up with the idea of starting a school at the Actors Studio. That was his idea. Lee had always taken on the responsibility for keeping the Studio going — he had his friends donate money to keep the doors open.
The school was very successful and then we started taking about having a master class with some well-known actors and writers being interviewed by Jim. And then somebody — I don’t know if it was Jim or not, but it might have been — said we should really tape this for posterity. But Jim was definitely the one who said we should air it. He brought it to Bravo and they bought it and it becameI have to say that Jim did all the work on the show.
I would say he enjoyed [the success] of the show. He was not a shy man. I’d be out on the street with him and people came running up asking for his autograph while I’d stand there invisibly. I think he enjoyed the recognition. But he was the same man off the air as what you saw on television. He was very erudite, very well-educated. He was good at just about everything. I remember I once went to visit him at his house in the Hamptons and he suggested we go to the stables to ride horses.
You know, most of us at the Actors Studio — not all but most — managed to do imitations of Jim. I’m not naming names. I’m not saying whether I did one or not. But most of us imitated him. He was a lot of fun.
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