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Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (Russian: Мария Алeкceeвнa Успенская; July 29, 1876, – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films. Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russian Empire and studied singing in Warsaw, Poland and acting in Moscow. She was a founding member of the First Studio, a theatre studio of the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre. There she was trained by Konstantin Stanislavski and his assistant Leopold Sulerzhitsky in the 'system'. The... MORE

Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (Russian: Мария Алeкceeвнa Успенская; July 29, 1876, – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films. Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russian Empire and studied singing in Warsaw, Poland and acting in Moscow. She was a founding member of the First Studio, a theatre studio of the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre. There she was trained by Konstantin Stanislavski and his assistant Leopold Sulerzhitsky in the 'system'. The Moscow Art Theatre traveled widely throughout Europe, and when it arrived in New York in 1922, Ouspenskaya decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade. She taught acting at the American Laboratory Theatre and in 1929, together with her colleague from Moscow Art Theatre Richard Boleslavsky, she founded the School of Dramatic Art in New York. One of Ouspenskaya's students at the school during this period was Anne Baxter, then an unknown teenager. Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya stayed away from Hollywood until her school's LESS