‘Inside the Actors Studio’ host Lipton dies at 93
James Lipton, the multi-talented familiar face who hosted “Inside the Actors Studio,” has died at the age of 93, Ovation, the network that airs the show, confirmed in a statement.
In addition to his role at the helm of the long-running series, Lipton was a prolific writer and producer. Born in Detroit, Lipton rose to the level of celebrity when he began hosting the series that also served as a class for his students at the Actors Studio, where he was dean.
“We celebrate and honor the great legacy of James Lipton. James is beloved around the world for his passion, insight, and dedication to the craft of acting. With ‘Inside the Actors Studio,’ James has created a long-lasting impact on the acting world. Ovation mourns his loss and offers deepest condolences to his family, friends and fans,” Ovation said.
As an actor, Lipton appeared most recently in the reboot of “Arrested Development, per IMDb.
His wife, Kedakai Mercedes Lipton, told The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter he died of bladder cancer. USA TODAY has reached out to Lipton’s rep for comment.
“Inside the Actors Studio” aired for more than 20 years on Bravo, premiering in 1994. Lipton interviewed Hollywood icons including Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Sally Field and Julia Roberts.
Lipton said his favorite guest on the show was Bradley Cooper, because he was a former student.
“The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing,” Lipton told Larry King in 2016. “It turned out to be Bradley Cooper.”
When the show announced in 2019 it would move to Ovation, Lipton departed.
“It’s very gratifying to see the legacy of ‘Inside the Actors Studio’ being carried forward for a new generation to appreciate and enjoy,” Lipton told The Hollywood Reporter. “I made a vow early on that we would not deal in gossip – only in craft, and Ovation, as a network dedicated to the arts, will continue that tradition with the next seasons of the series.”
His early acting roles included playing Dr. Dick Grant in “The Guiding Light” in 1953 and Michelangelo in “You Are There” that year. Yet he found more success as a writer, eventually becoming head writer on “Guiding Light.” He also worked on more than 400 episodes on the ’70s series “The Doctors.”
Bravo mainstay Andy Cohen took to Twitter to mourn Lipton, writing: “(Lipton) was a warm, meticulous man with a great appreciation of the arts and wicked sense of humor. He was the face of Bravo who delivered us oneof-a-kind interviews with a breadth of superstars . ... He really cared about what he did. If you got booked on his show, it meant you’d made it, and had the talent to back it up. What a good guy. James Lipton will be missed.”
Frances Berwick, president, NBCU Lifestyle Networks, said in a statement sent to USA TODAY: “James Lipton was a titan of the film and entertainment industry and had a profound influence on so many. I had the pleasure of working with Jim for 20 years on Bravo’s first original series, his pride and joy ‘Inside the Actors Studio.’ We all enjoyed and respected his fierce passion, contributions to the craft, comprehensive research and his ability to bring the most intimate interviews ever conducted with A-list actors across generations.”
Lipton’s time in the limelight was not totally free of controversy. He memorably raised eyebrows when revealed in a 2013 interview with Parade that he was a pimp in in 1950s.
“It was only a few years after the war,” he said in the 2013 interview. “Paris was different then, still poor. Men couldn’t get jobs and, in the male chauvinist Paris of that time, the women couldn’t get work at all. It was perfectly respectable for them to go into le milieu.”