Julian beck biography

Biography

Julian Beck was born in New York City on May 31st, 1925. His talent as an actor, writer, set designer and theatre director was already evident in the nineteen-thirties while he was a pupil at the Horace Man High School, with classmates such as future beat generation writer Jack Kerouac and Kenneth Kock who would later be awarded the Pulizter Prize for literature.
In 1943, he abandoned his studies at Yale University, saying that he could “no longer serve what he did not believe in”, meaning the way of thinking imposed by the academic world, so he returned to New York City, intending to dedicate himself to painting and writing. That was the year he met his life partner, Judith Malina. They founded the Living Theatre together in 1947, and for the next forty years staged experimental plays which left a profound and lasting mark on twentieth-century Western culture.
As a painter, Julian belonged to the New York school of abstract expressionism, exhibiting at Peg

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Julian Beck (1925-1985)

“Turned at door to say good -bye to Julian Beck, Medical Arts Center West 57th street Manhattan, October 1984 wife actress Judith Malina and trouper Hanon of their Living Theater by his bed. Cancer of abdominal wall, yet he rose for another year of stage works, grave in Zurich to declaim the latter’s statement of the state as jail of human spirit, smoke a joint and break the laws of death.” (Ginsberg caption.) photo c Allen Ginsberg Estate

The actor-director, poet, painter, (co-founder of “The Living Theater“), Julian Beck died on this day, September 14, 26 years ago [ 2024 – now 39 years ago]. Allen took this memorable shot a year earlier, when he made a visit to his “57th Street New York hospital room”. Beck’s “stomach-abdomen lining cancer allowed remission for the next year [1984-5] while he made films & film & theater & books from Zurich to Miami”, Allen recalls. 

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Julian Beck

American actor, stage director, poet, and painter (1925–1985)

Julian Beck
Born	(1925-05-31)May 31, 1925 New York City, U.S.
Died	September 14, 1985(1985-09-14) (aged 60) New York City, U.S.
Resting place	Cedar Park Cemetery, New Jersey
Occupations	Actor stage director poet painter
Years active	1943–1985
Spouse
Children	2

Julian Beck (May 31, 1925 – September 14, 1985) was an American actor, stage director, poet, and painter. He is best known for co-founding and directing the Living Theatre, as well as his role as Reverend Henry Kane, the malevolent preacher in the supernatural horror film Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

Early life

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Beck was born on May 31, 1925, in the Washington Heights, Manhattan, to Mabel Lucille (née Blum), a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman. He was named after Julia Beck (née Blum), his mother's sister and his father's first wife, who had died in the influe