Paul Mann

Paul Mann (December 2, 1913 – September 24, 1985) was a Canadian actor and acting teacher born in Toronto, Ontario, whose career spanned theatre, film, and education. His brother was actor Larry D. Mann. Mann's stage career began when he was sixteen, and his Broadway appearances extended from 1929 to 1965.

Mann founded the Paul Mann Actor's Workshop in 1953, where he taught his own approach to Method acting. While figures such as Lee Strasberg disseminated Method techniques through the Actors Studio, Mann developed his own classes independently. Working alongside Lloyd Richards, a fellow Toronto native who served as chief assistant director of the school, Mann cultivated an environment welcoming to actors of all racial backgrounds. Among the alumni of the workshop were Ruby Dee, Billy Dee Williams, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, Al Lewis, and Vic Morrow. Mann also held an academic position as professor of acting and director of the theater arts program at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

His Broadway career opened with a role as a Gentleman in the musical comedy Follow Thru in 1929. Subsequent stage appearances included Johnny Johnson in 1936, in which he played a German Priest and Orderly, and Flight to the West in 1940, where he portrayed Thomas Hickey. A 1948 revival of Macbeth cast him as Menteith and Murderer, and he appeared as Freund in the 1952 drama Flight Into Egypt. He played Japie Grobler in Too Late the Phalarope during its 1956 run. In the 1960s, Mann appeared in three productions associated with director Elia Kazan's circle: After the Fall in 1964, in which he played Quentin's Father alongside Jason Robards, The Changeling later that same year, and Incident at Vichy in 1964, where he portrayed the character Marchand. His final Broadway credit was a revival of Danton's Death in October 1965.

Although his acting work was centered primarily in theatre, Mann made a small number of screen appearances. He was seen in an episode of the 1950s television serial Danger and took two feature film roles. The first was the merchant Aleko Sinnikoglou in America, America (1963), directed by his friend Elia Kazan, and the second was the village butcher Lazar Wolf in the 1971 screen adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof. He received Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for both performances.

A year before his death, Mann was found liable in a civil suit filed in Manhattan by eight female former students who accused him of sexual abuse and harassment. He was ordered to pay them a combined total of $12,000. Mann died on September 24, 1985.