A film, television, and Broadway actor, Robert Elston was a highly regarded director/teacher and taught at HB Studios on Bank Street for fifteen years, before co-founding and assuming the artistic directorship of the American Renaissance Theater Company. He made his Broadway debut in 1958 at the age of twenty four playing the role of Sherman in Maybe Tuesday. Herman Shumlin, the celebrated Broadway producer, cast him as Ray Blent in Tall Story the following year. He followed that performance with The Golden Fleecing opposite Tom Poston, Constance Ford, and Suzanne Pleshette. For a brief time he concentrated his career in Hollywood but the Theatre West hit, Spoon River Anthology transferred to Broadway and with its success rooted him permanently in New York again. It opened to critical acclaim at the Booth Theatre with Joyce Van Patten, Betty Garrett and Chuck Aidman. Later New York productions include David Merrick's production of Vivat,Vivat Regina as Robert Dudley opposite Eileen Atkin's Queen Elizabeth, and Claire Bloom's Mary Queen of Scots. In National Broadway tours he was Thomas Jefferson in 1776, starred opposite Frans Nuyen in The World of Suzie Wong, and co-starred with Eddie Bracken in Robert Anderson's You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running and in another production of the same play with Jack Gilford and Maureen O'Sullivan. Bob returned to NY to play the same triple character role in the Broadway production of You Know I Can't Hear You .... Regionally he also starred with Chita Rivera in Father's Day, Tammy Grimes in Taming of the Shrew, and with Patty Duke and John Astin in Shot in the Dark. Throughout these years his reputation as a valued teacher of acting and musical theatre at HB Studios was growing. On television, he played continuing roles in four popular daytime series. He was also featured in many network television roles. His feature film work included roles in George Washington, A Private Matter, The World According to Garp, Mark of the Witch, and Rise of America. During his career, he appeared in more than one hundred television commercials. Born in Manhattan and a graduate of City College, Robert Elston earned a Master's Degree in English from New York University and attended the Sorbonne in Paris. He was a member of the HB Studio workshop company, playing opposite Uta Hagen in the works of Bertolt Brecht and in many productions with her husband, Herbert Bergof. In 1976 he and his colleague, Elizabeth Perry, incorporated their own workshop which became the American Renaissance Theater. Mr. Elston was the co-author with Murray Grand of a musical, Murder at the Gaiety, authored a biographical play, Our House, and adapted, produced and starred in After Many a Summer, based on Anton Chekov's The Seagull. He co-wrote his very successful one man show based on the works of Kafka, Dosteovsky, and Thoreau, Notes from the Underground with Elizabeth Perry and compiled his second one-man show, Portrait of a Man, in which he sang and danced, directed by Anita Khanzadian. A devoted teacher of acting and musical theatre for twenty-five years, his students included Bette Midler and Gretchen Cryer. He taught until 1987. His last assignment was a musical theatre workshop in Berlin at the Theatrehaus. He died in Amsterdam, his final thoughts were reflections on his twelve productive years with the American Renaissance Theater.
