Milton Katselas

• Name — Milton Katselas • Birth Name — Milton George Katselas • Born — December 22, 1933 • Birthplace — Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Place of death — Los Angeles, California, U.S. • Occupation — Director, acting instructor, coach, producer

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Katselas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Greek immigrant parents, who owned a small restaurant outside the gates of a Westinghouse Electric plant. When Milton was 14 years old, his father went into the movie theater business and ran a local theater company of Greek actors. Milton Katsalas later adjusted his surname to Katselas. After high school, he set off for Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) to study theater. On a visit to New York, he sneaked in to watch Lee Strasberg's acting class where he also saw renowned director Elia Kazan on the street and chased him down. "I talked to him in Greek, and he talked with me"... [H]e told me, `When you finish college, come see me.'", Katselas recalled. Following graduation in 1954, he began studying with Strasberg and serving as an apprentice to Kazan.

In 1978, Katselas founded an acting school in Los Angeles called the Beverly Hills Playhouse, where he gave acting classes for 30 years until his death in 2008. He had a wide range of students, including Gene Hackman, Jenna Elfman, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Giovanni Ribisi, Tom Selleck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ted Danson, Tony Danza, Jeffrey Tambor, Tyne Daly, Lakshmi Manchu, Doris Roberts, Anne Archer, Kate Hudson, Kim Cattrall, Thaao Penghlis, Robert Urich, and Patrick Swayze. Some students reportedly felt alienated by the unspoken pressure to join the Church of Scientology, however. While Katselas was highly regarded as a teacher, his classes remained controversial. In his later years, Katselas became disaffected with post-Hubbard Scientology. He eventually had a break with the organisation, when a Scientologist named Grant Cardone sent an e-mail accusing Katselas of improper sexual conduct with his students. Following the incident, a number of Scientologist actors left the school.

Katselas was a long-time Scientologist, having been introduced to the cult in 1965, and had attained the Scientology state of Operating Thetan. While his relationship with Church of Scientology management broke down in his later years, he remained dedicated to Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard to his death. Katselas died of heart failure on October 24, 2008, aged 74, at the Los Angeles hospital Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Katselas was portrayed by actor James Franco in the Sal Mineo biopic Sal, which Franco also directed.