Jeremy Whelan(1941-2005)

Jeremy has been a professional actor for over thirty years. He has starred in feature films, network television, at Lincoln Center, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, regional theatre, repertory theatre. Any where and anyway that an actor can ply their craft, he has done it, including commercials, on camera and voice overs. He has also worked in just about every facet of film, theatre and television, including many directing jobs. From box office to stage manager, from pulling cable on video shoots to director of photography, boom operator etc.; he has done it all. His education in the field was very ecletic. Starting in the early sixties at San Francisco City College with James Heron, a respected member of ACT. He was simultaniously in a daily workshop at The Committee, a well know improvisational company, his teachers there included, Dick Schaal, John Brent and Del Close. The work was centered on Viola Spolin's Theatre Games. He spent over a year and a half in a daily workshop at The Second City in Chicago with Jo Forsberg as his teacher, again the work was concentrated on Spolin. He had many teachers in New York including Francis Amorati. He also worked with John Paul Voos in London, benifiting from John Paul's recent return from Poland where he had worked with Grotowski for a year. He spent six months at The Actors Studio in Los Angeles, where he observed Lee Strasberg working with Studio members. He also had workshops with Lee Grant and Bruce Dern during this period. Over the course of his career Jeremy had many other teachers too numerous to name. He started teaching acting in Hollywood in 1984 and has taught all over the world since. He published his first book on acting, THE ABC'S OF ACTING in 1990; his second book INSTANT ACTING was published in 1994, followed by NEW SCHOOL ACTING in July, 1996. His latest, NEW SCHOOL ACTING II, appeared in 1998.