Profile of Maria Ouspenskaya on Famous Like Me

Maria Ouspenskaya (July 29, 1876 - December 3, 1949) was a Russian born actress who achieved success as an stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films.

Born in Tula, Russia, Ouspenskaya studied singing in Warsaw and acting in Moscow and performed extensively in Russian theater. A member of the Moscow Art Theatre, she was directed by Konstantin Stanislavski, and for the remainder of her life advocated and taught his method. The Moscow Art Theatre travelled widely throughout Europe and when it arrived in New York in 1922 she decided to remain. 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 the then unknown teenager, Anne Baxter.

Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya had avoided making a career in film, until the financial hardship of her school forced her to consider the possibilities of film to help her build 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. Her other successes included The Rains Came (1939), Waterloo Bridge (1940), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Kings Row (1942). Despite her two Academy Award nominations her later films were inferior productions such as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) and Tarzan and the Amazons (1945).

Ouspenskaya died from a stroke several days after receiving severe burns in a house fire, which she had caused by falling asleep while smoking a cigarette.

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