Jeff Corey

Biography

Born on August 10, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York, Jeff Corey was a film and television character actor as well as one of the top acting teachers in America. He was an indifferent student, but after taking a drama class in high school, young Corey became hooked. His talent earned him a scholarship to the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts, the top acting school in New York City at the time. Corey then became a professional actor, a career choice which saved him from a life selling sewing machines, he later said. His first gig after acting school was with a Shakespearean repertory company, after which he became a member of a traveling troupe that entertained children. After Leslie Howard closed his Broadway production of Hamlet in December 1936, he took the play on the road with Corey cast as Rosencrantz in 1937. In 1939, Corey appeared as part of the Federal Theater Project's (FTP) Living Newspaper dramatic showcase in the Life and Death of an American, co-starring with Arthur Kennedy, and featuring the music of Alex North. He made his film debut in a bit part in the Federal Theater's sole movie production, ...One Third of a Nation... (1939). Starring Sylvia Sidney, Leif Erickson and future Oscar-winning director Sidney Lumet, the movie, which was released by Parmount, was a progressive exegesis on the hazards of tenement slum conditions. Congress terminated FTP funding on June 30, 1939, mainly due to objections to the leftist political tones of many FTP productions (see Tim Robbins' movie Cradle Will Rock (1999) about the pressures faced by the FTP in 1939). In 1940, Corey, who had married his wife Hope in 1938, moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in studio productions through 1943, including The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), My Friend Flicka (1943) and Joan of Arc…