Clyde Ventura(1936-1990)
- Actor
Noted American stage director and acting teacher who appeared in a few
films. A provocative and illuminating director whose special province
was the works of Tennessee Williams, Ventura served as artistic director of
Theatre West in Los Angeles and, for the last few years of his life, as
the principal teacher at the Actors Studio's West Coast workshop. An
athletic and charismatic man who was more likely to be mistaken for a
beach boy than an acting teacher, he made a few films, mostly
low-budget action pictures. But it is his dynamic work for the stage
and his brilliant capabilities as a teacher for which he will always be
most noted in the theatrical world. He died in 1990 from the sudden
onslaught of complications from AIDS.