From The Sea Gull, her 1938 Broadway debut, to the 1995 off-Broadway hit Mrs. Klein, Uta Hagen (born 1919) keeps bringing down the house. Many critics consider her the first lady of theater.

Uta Hagen was born to Oskar Frank Leonard and Thyra A. (Leisner) Hagen in Gottingen, Germany, on June 12, 1919. Her brother, Holger Hagen, later became an actor in Germany. Hagen's father taught art history at the local university and also directed the Gottingen Handel festivals after World War I.

In 1924, as a Carl Schurz Foundation Professor, Hagen's father traveled to Wisconsin in the United States. He founded the art history department at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Offered the position as head of the department, he accepted and moved his family to the United States.

For many years during her childhood, Hagen had accompanied her parents to the theater both in the United States and abroad since the...