Uta Thyra Hagen
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Awards
Uta Hagen won her first Tony Award in 1950 for Clifford Odets’ ‘The Country Girl’ and a second in 1963 for playing Martha in Edward Albee’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She became a revered acting teacher at HB Studio and authored the best-selling book ‘Respect for Acting’. She received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999 and the National Medal of Arts in 2002.
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Uta Hagen — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Art historian Oskar Hagen and opera singer Thyra Leisner named their daughter Uta Thyra after the statue Ute in Naumburg Cathedral. Born in Göttingen, Germany on June 12, 1919, she moved to Madison, Wisconsin as a child when her father took a teaching position at the University of Wisconsin. She attended University of Wisconsin High School and briefly enrolled at the university. Her early exposure to the arts shaped her career.
Her first Tony Award came in 1950 for Clifford Odets’ The Country Girl. She had made her Broadway debut twelve years earlier in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. In 1962 she originated Martha in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, winning her second Tony. She made her film debut at age 53 in The Other 1972. At HB Studio, co-founded with husband Herbert Berghof, she taught and co-authored the best-selling textbook Respect for Acting.
On December 8, 1938, she married actor José Ferrer; they had one daughter, Letty Ferrer, born October 15, 1940. The couple divorced in 1948. In 1957, she married actor and teacher Herbert Berghof, with whom she co-founded HB Studio. After his death in 1990, she took over as chairwoman of HB Studios. She suffered a stroke in October 2001 and died on January 14, 2004 in Greenwich Village, New York City.
Hagen’s acting techniques, her object exercises built on Stanislavski and Vakhtangov, are taught worldwide. She influenced actors including Robert De Niro, Liza Minnelli, and Al Pacino. The American Theatre Hall of Fame inducted her in 1981. She received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999, and President George W. Bush awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 2002. Her book Respect for Acting remains a best-selling acting text.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Uta Hagen — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Little-known facts about Uta Hagen — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
At age 80, Hagen reprised her signature role of Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to strong reviews. A year later, she gave her last performance on stage at the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, California on August 21, 2001, opposite David Hyde Pierce in Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.
Hagen and then-husband José Ferrer co-starred with Paul Robeson in Othello in 1943-1944. Allegations that their association with the left-wing Robeson cast them under suspicion of Communist ties during the McCarthy era are unfounded.
With Haskel Frankel, Hagen wrote Respect for Acting; it remains in print as a best-selling acting text.
Hagen had one child with José Ferrer, Leticia Thyra Ferrer, born on October 15, 1940 in New York. In her autobiography Sources: A Memoir, her daughter’s first name Leticia stood for happiness, and her second name Thyra is from the name of Hagen’s mother.
In 1999, Hagen won a third Tony, a Special Lifetime Achievement Award.
President George W. Bush awarded her the National Medal of Arts at the White House in March 2003.
Hagen made her film debut as the grandmother in Tom Tryon’s best-seller The Other 1972 at age 53.
Hagen taught acting to Robert De Niro, Kenneth McMillan, Liza Minnelli, and Al Pacino among others.
She received the Women’s International Center Living Legacy Award in 1994.
After husband/coach Herbert Berghof died in 1990, Hagen took over the chairmanship of HB Studios and the theatre of the HB Playwrights Foundation.
Hagen wrote a cook book entitled Love for Cooking.
Of Welsh-German ancestry on her father’s side and Danish on her mother’s side.
Her father, Dr. Oskar Frank Leonard Hagen, was an art historian, musicologist, composer, conductor, Handel authority, and professor at the University of Goettingen and the University of Wisconsin. Her mother, Thyra Araalie Leisner, was an opera singer. She was the sister of Holger Hagen and sister-in-law of Bruni Löbel.
Her father named her after a famous statue in the Naumburg Cathedral titled Ute.
She was the celebrity spokeswoman for BIC Ballpoint Pens and Blatz Beer.
Her last name rhymes with noggin.
Hagen played Ophelia opposite Eva Le Gallienne’s Hamlet in a Massachusetts production in 1936.
The roles for which she won Tony Awards for Best Actress earned Academy Awards for other actresses: Grace Kelly as Georgie Elgin in The Country Girl 1954 and Elizabeth Taylor as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966.
She was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981, received the Mayor’s Liberty Bell in 1986, and the John Houseman Award in 1987.
She had a granddaughter, Teresa Teuscher Biefeldt, and a great-granddaughter, Thyra Bielfeldt.
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