Film & TV / Literature
James Lipton
1926–2020 · television host, writer, actor, educator
Host of Inside the Actors Studio who grew up in Detroit, worked as a Detroit Times copy boy, acted on local stages and radio, and studied at Central High and Wayne State.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Manhattan, New York City
aged 93- Birth name
- Louis James Lipton
- Detroit years
- 1926–mid-1940s
- Field
- Film & TV, Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Lipton was born in Detroit, the only child of a teacher-librarian and the journalist and later Beat poet Lawrence Lipton. As a teenager he worked as a copy boy at the Detroit Times, acted with the Catholic Theater of Detroit and performed on local radio. After graduating from Central High School he spent a year at Wayne State University in the mid-1940s before enlisting in the Army Air Forces. He went on to a varied New York career as actor, soap-opera writer, lyricist, producer and author of the word book An Exaltation of Larks, and in 1994 created Inside the Actors Studio, the Bravo interview show he hosted for 24 years and which made him one of television's most recognizable, and most parodied, figures.
Highlights
- Created and hosted Inside the Actors Studio (1994–2018)
- Dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University
- Author of An Exaltation of Larks (1968), a book of collective nouns
- Copy boy at the Detroit Times as a teenager
- Central High School graduate; one year at Wayne State
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · early 1940s
Detroit Central High School
He graduated from Central High before a year at Wayne State.
Studied here · mid-1940s
Wayne State University (then Wayne University)
He studied here for one year before enlisting.
Worked here · early 1940s
Detroit Times building
Demolished · 1960
He was a copy boy for the Hearst daily, which folded in 1960; its building near Times Square downtown was demolished in 1978.