Fred Kareman(1930-2007)

Fred Kareman was born Spiro Kacramanous in Asbury Park, New Jersey, on June 24, 1930, the son of Greek immigrants who later anglicized their last name to Kareman. As for the name Fred, Kareman adopted it in high school when, after tiring of teachers mispronouncing his given name, he broke into the school at night and wrote an "F." in front of the "Spiro" in a home room teacher's roll book. The next day, he told the teacher Spiro was his middle name and his first name was Fred. It stuck. Kareman's talents for sneaking in and out of places would result in more profound changes than half an alias. As a teenager, a friend persuaded him to skip school and go to the city to see a matinee performance of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. From that point, Kareman dedicated himself to acting, and studied with Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included Steve McQueen. Kareman acted in The Skin of Our Teeth and A Cook for Mr. General on Broadway, several plays Off-Broadway, and in television shows such as The Hallmark Hall of Fame, Operation Petticoat, and Charlie's Angels. He also appeared in the Dudley Moore comedy, "Lovesick." Kareman's career as a teacher began as many do - as a solid character actor devoted to the craft but one who needed something more to help navigate the vagaries of an unforgiving profession. After a proposed play with Renee Taylor failed to materialize, Kareman went to see his teacher and mentor, Sanford Meisner, who suggested that he teach. That was in the late '60s, and Kareman taught regularly from that point until his last class on Dec. 15, 2006. Among his thousands of students was Frederic F. Forrest, an Academy Award nominee who appeared in The Rose and Apocalypse Now. In a letter to Fred's wife, Pamela Moller Kareman, he wrote: "Freddie was so sensitive and receptive. He freed people from their insecurities, anxieties, and fears through his enormous generosity of spirit and love. He made you see all possibilities in life." "I think that he was egoless in the teaching," said his wife, Pamela Moller Kareman, who is the artistic director of the Schoolhouse Theater in Croton Falls, N.Y. "He inspired people to be brave, to be an actor and to be proud of it. He just had so much respect for the work and the profession." Robert LuPone, a Broadway veteran and the dean of the graduate drama program at the New School for Social Research, said he went to study with Kareman about 10 years ago because he had become bored with the craft. "He awakened and reinvigorated me as an actor," LuPone said. "There are very few teachers - and Freddie is one of them - where class is perfection." Over the course of his long career Kareman trained actors such as Mary Steenburgen and Marisa Tomei (who both went on to win Oscars), Maria Bello, Robert Lupone, and Hugh Panaro. Fred Kareman died Feb. 25, 2007 of heart disease in New York. He was 77. He is survived by his wife, director Pamela Moller Kareman; a daughter, a son and a sister...as well as the numerous actors he taught and inspired.