My Take
Judith Malina is one of those figures who makes you realize how tame most theater really is. She and Julian Beck built The Living Theatre from nothing in late-1940s New York, and what they created was genuinely radical — confrontational, anarchist, physically demanding, and utterly uninterested in your comfort as an audience member. Getting arrested, being exiled from countries, dragging their company across Europe — this was not performance art for grant applications, it was a life lived as artistic protest. The Obie Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship eventually caught up with her legacy, but those feel almost beside the point. What I find remarkable is that she kept at it well into her eighties, never softening the politics. That kind of stubborn, lifelong commitment to a vision is genuinely rare.
Overview
Judith Malina (June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015) was an American actress, director and writer. With her husband Julian Beck, Malina co-founded The Living Theatre, a radical political theatre troupe that rose to prominence in New York City and Paris during the 1950s and 1960s.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Judith Malina
- Name (Japanese)
- ジュディス・マリナ
- Reading
- じゅでぃす・まりな
- Born
- June 4, 1926 – April 10, 2015
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Gemini / Tiger
- Origin
- Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- writer / playwright / stage actor / film actor / television actor
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Private
Awards & achievements
- 1985 Guggenheim Fellowship
- 2007 Order of Cultural Merit (Brazil)
- Obie Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.