Elia Kazan (born 1909) is known as the preeminent director of works by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Kazan emerged as the leading exponent of psychological realism via his film and stage productions of the 1940s and 1950s. His works reflect both social struggle and personal pain.

Elia Kazan was born into a large family of Anatolian Greeks near Istanbul in 1909. Kazan's family came to the United States when he was four, and he grew up in the slums and suburbs of New York City. He was a reclusive child who read compulsively, often as an escape from working in the family business, the rug trade. Determined not to follow in his father's footsteps, the young Elia attended Williams College from 1926 to 1930, majoring in English literature. It was here that he developed his initial interest in theater, writing a prize-winning paper on the audience's emotional response to drama.

Kazan...