The Los Angeles school, which Adler founded in the final years of her life with the help of Irene Gilbert and Joanne Linville, had long been plagued by mismanagement and debt. The territorial standoff - with rumors of ego clashes and a communication breakdown - comes at a time of robust growth for each institution. Tom Oppenheim, who runs the New York school (and is Adler’s grandson), declined to comment on his relationship with Stella Adler Los Angeles but said “we have nothing but respect for what they are doing.”Ī spokesman for the New York school later added that there is “no structural way for the two schools to join together without each giving up its own identity.” Obviously, we would prefer to do this with them, but they are going ahead without us.” “I can only assume that they want to call the shots. “We reached out strongly to them,” he said, adding that he received only a noncommittal response after a number of overtures. Now, the organizations are going head to head for the first time as competitors. Their relationship over the years has been distant and sometimes cool, according to people affiliated with the schools. While they both bear her name, the institutions have operated separately with different boards of directors since Adler’s death in 1992.

But as recent developments have shown, the schools also have inherited her prickly side - especially when it comes to dealing with each other. The schools she founded during her lifetime - one in New York and another in Los Angeles - carry on her tradition of acting as a quasi-religious calling. At the same time, she was a notoriously competitive, even combative, personality - a clawed dowager who wasn’t afraid of making enemies or cutting down those who disagreed with her pedagogical techniques. Stella Adler, the high priestess of the American theater, was known for her boundless generosity toward young actors.

Marlon Brando, her most famous pupil, once wrote that “she imparts the most valuable kind of information - how to discover the nature of our own emotional mechanics and therefore those of others.” She launched the careers of some of the most successful actors of the 20th century.

Stella adler studio of acting la