Lee Strasberg - Early Years

Early Years

Lee Strasberg was born Israel Strassberg in Budaniv in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Ukraine) to Jewish parents, Baruch Meyer Strassberg and Ida (née Diner), and was the youngest of three sons. His father emigrated to New York while his family remained in their home village with an uncle, a rabbinical teacher. His father, who worked as a presser in the garment industry, sent first for his eldest son and his daughter. Finally, enough money was saved to bring over his wife and his two remaining sons. In 1909, the family was reunited on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where they lived until the early twenties. Young Strasberg took refuge in voracious reading and the companionship of his older brother, Zalmon, whose death in the influenza epidemic of 1918 was so traumatic for the young Strasberg that, despite being a straight-A student, he dropped out of high school.

A relative introduced him to the theater by giving him a small part in a Yiddish-language production that was being performed by the Progressive Drama Club. He later joined the Chrystie Street Settlement House's drama club. Philip Loeb, casting director of the Theater Guild, sensed that Strasberg could act, although he was not yet thinking of a full-time acting career, and was still working as a shipping clerk and bookkeeper for a wig company. When he was 23 years old he enrolled in the Clare Tree Major School of the Theater. He became a naturalized United States citizen on January 16, 1939 in New York City at the New York Southern District Court.