Andreas Katsulas(1946-2006)
- Actor
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Andreas from a working-class Greek-American family. Attracted
from early childhood to being on stage when at 4 his mother took him to
see a community theater performance, he took theatre as an
extra-curricular activity in high school. He then majored in it at St.
Louis University, where he worked his way through school doing things
like waiting on tables. Next, after earning a drama fellowship,
Katsulas received a Master's Degree in Theater Arts from one of the
nation's top schools for the genre, Indiana University in Bloomington,
Indiana.
With never a doubt or hesitation, Andreas jumped right into the
professional theater world, performing in plays in his native St. Louis
with the Loretto-Hilton Repertory Theater. This was followed by work
with the Theatre Company of Boston. After that, Katsulas moved to New
York to some challenging off-off-Broadway theater at La Mama. This was
followed by a fifteen-year heart and soul involvement with Peter
Brook's International Theatre Company in Paris, performing around the
world with a challenging combination of improvisational theater in
every imaginable circumstance and space, and "prepared" theater pieces
in traditional, as well as unconventional, theatrical spaces. Katsulas
trod the boards from Lincoln Center in New York and The Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., to the "mean streets" of Brooklyn and marketplaces
in remote African Villages. There were performances from elite Theater
Festivals in Iran, Avignon and Belgrade: in prisons & mental
institutions; at rock quarries in Australia; on barrios in Venezuela;
in sewage plants in Switzerland; winding through the streets of Venice,
Italy; in the fields with farm workers in California, near the lakes of
Minnesota with Native Americans, in sometimes extreme conditions like
snow, rain, and intensive heat.
During a hiatus from the stage, a part in
Michael Cimino's
The Sicilian (1987) brought Andreas
to Los Angeles, after which he was immediately cast as Joey Venza in
Ridley Scott's
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987),
then as Arthur, the chauffeur, in
Blake Edwards's
Sunset (1988).
In early 2005, Andreas was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer; he
passed away a year later, in Los Angeles. He had lived there since
1986, and had hoped to return to working in the theater before his
far-too-early death, just over three months shy of his 60th birthday.
from early childhood to being on stage when at 4 his mother took him to
see a community theater performance, he took theatre as an
extra-curricular activity in high school. He then majored in it at St.
Louis University, where he worked his way through school doing things
like waiting on tables. Next, after earning a drama fellowship,
Katsulas received a Master's Degree in Theater Arts from one of the
nation's top schools for the genre, Indiana University in Bloomington,
Indiana.
With never a doubt or hesitation, Andreas jumped right into the
professional theater world, performing in plays in his native St. Louis
with the Loretto-Hilton Repertory Theater. This was followed by work
with the Theatre Company of Boston. After that, Katsulas moved to New
York to some challenging off-off-Broadway theater at La Mama. This was
followed by a fifteen-year heart and soul involvement with Peter
Brook's International Theatre Company in Paris, performing around the
world with a challenging combination of improvisational theater in
every imaginable circumstance and space, and "prepared" theater pieces
in traditional, as well as unconventional, theatrical spaces. Katsulas
trod the boards from Lincoln Center in New York and The Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., to the "mean streets" of Brooklyn and marketplaces
in remote African Villages. There were performances from elite Theater
Festivals in Iran, Avignon and Belgrade: in prisons & mental
institutions; at rock quarries in Australia; on barrios in Venezuela;
in sewage plants in Switzerland; winding through the streets of Venice,
Italy; in the fields with farm workers in California, near the lakes of
Minnesota with Native Americans, in sometimes extreme conditions like
snow, rain, and intensive heat.
During a hiatus from the stage, a part in
Michael Cimino's
The Sicilian (1987) brought Andreas
to Los Angeles, after which he was immediately cast as Joey Venza in
Ridley Scott's
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987),
then as Arthur, the chauffeur, in
Blake Edwards's
Sunset (1988).
In early 2005, Andreas was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer; he
passed away a year later, in Los Angeles. He had lived there since
1986, and had hoped to return to working in the theater before his
far-too-early death, just over three months shy of his 60th birthday.