James Lipton, longtime host of Inside the Actors Studio, dead at 93

James Lipton, the actor, writer, producer and host of the long-running interview series Inside the Actors Studio, has died at the age of 93.

Lipton died of bladder cancer at his New York home, his wife, Kedakai Lipton, told the New York Times and the Hollywood Reporter. 

Ovation, the U.S. network now home to Inside the Actors Studio, confirmed the news on Monday.

Born in Detroit, Lipton's career in entertainment began in his youth, including a voice role on radio drama The Lone Ranger. It was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served in the U.S. Air Force.

Though for a time he sought to become a lawyer, Lipton pursued acting in order to help pay the bills. After he spent time studying acting, voice and movement, show business soon won out. Over the decades, he racked up an eclectic resume that ranged from appearing on TV shows and soap operas to writing TV scripts, Broadway productions and novels as well as non-fiction books. He also went on to produce television specials.

Inside the Actors Studio

In the 1990s, Lipton created the program and series that would become his legacy. He proposed for New York's famed Actors Studio to partner with The New School in creating a new master of fine arts program, for which he would eventually serve as dean. 

Part of his proposal was to begin a series of seminars with the profession's very best — long-form, one-on-one interviews focused on the craft of performance that Lipton would conduct with top actors, who would also answer questions from students.

He signed a deal with then-fledgling TV network Bravo for a TV series that aired a condensed, one-hour version of these low-budget, admittedly academic sessions. Called Inside the Actors Studio, the first show featured Paul Newman.

"People do not come on to sell a movie and you never hear the words, 'I'm opening in Vegas in two weeks,'" Lipton told The Associated Press in 1996.

"That's what most talk shows depend upon, and that's fine, but with us we're getting together to dig as deep as we can."

Over the next almost quarter-century, Lipton would go on to pose his thoroughly researched questions — in his indelible, precise manner — to nearly 300 acclaimed actors and Hollywood luminaries, from Meryl Streep to Robert De Niro, Glenn Close to Steven Spielberg, Dave Chappelle to the cast of The Simpsons. The show became a hit and made Lipton an Emmy-winner.

One of his favourite interviews, Lipton has said, was with a former student. 

"The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing," Lipton told Larry King in 2016.

"It turned out to be Bradley Cooper."

Lipton and Cooper, who can be seen asking Sean Penn a question in a 1999 episode of the show, both teared up when the latter returned as a guest in 2011.

Though some found Lipton's style fawning and pompous — he was parodied by comedians, perhaps most famously by Will Farrell on Saturday Night Live — Lipton was good-natured about it all, including inviting Ferrell onto his show. 

More recently, thanks to the show's success, he returned to acting himself with TV appearances on shows like Arrested Development and voicing an animated version of himself on The Simpsons. He was also honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the Daytime Emmys in 2016.

According to Ovation, Inside the Actors Studio has been viewed by more than 80 million people in more than 125 countries. Lipton stepped down as host in 2019, when the program moved from Bravo. 

Lipton is survived by his wife, Kedakai, whom he married in 1970.