- Know then as Leslie Steven Berks, he attended
Raine's Foundation Grammar School for only 2 years from 1948-1950.
Currently known as Steven Berkoff, he is the well known actor,
director, playwright and author, familiar through villainous
appearances in films such as Rambo, Octopussy and War & Remembrance.
He is regarded by many as the greatest living theatre practitioner
and is one of the country's most controversial and acclaimed
theatrical performers. He has been a vital force in British theatre
since the late-1960s, personifying the "angry young man,"
spending time in a detention center, attacking the British class-system,
and verbally assaulting his peers in the theatrical establishment
while carving out a niche for himself in fringe theatre circles.
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- Born in Stepney, London on 3 August, 1937,
Berkoff was not a happy child, he believes, because of his strained
relationship with his father. This unhappy home life, a sense
of isolation amongst his childhood peers, and his Jewish identity
led him to a life as a social and professional outcast. Loneliness
has been a prevalent issue for Berkoff, reflected in his art
as well as in his interpersonal relationships. He is often perceived
as a megalomaniac, though he stresses collaboration between artists
and often relies on the unity of a large chorus to realize his
specific artistic vision. Berkoff's rebellious attitude and quick
temper are juxtaposed against an idiosyncratic man yearning for
acceptance.
-
-
- Shuffled between schools and countries, Berkoff's
family lived in three different London locations plus a disastrous
four month move to the United States, all before he was fifteen.
He was a bright child who took pleasure in his schoolwork and
released steam by swimming at the neighborhood swimming pool.
Berkoff's maternal grandparents were Russian immigrants who emigrated
to London's Jewish east-end. His father, Abraham (Al), shortened
the family name from Berkovitch to Berks in an attempt to camouflage
the fact that they were Jewish. Later in life, as he embraced
his Jewish identity, and he made the conscious choice to change
his name to the more ethnic sounding "Berkoff." He
first lived in Luton, England, but in 1947, at the age of ten,
he, his mother Pauline (Polly), and sister Beryl moved to the
United States for four months, living in the attic of his mother's
eldest sister in Nyack, New York. After a short time the Berks
family was shuttled to an uncle's one room attic in the Bronx.
-
- Berkoff's father never joined the family
in New York to offer support while Berkoff's extended family
soon tired of housing the family of three. Upon their return
to London, the Berks family reunited with the man of the family
and was housed by another aunt. Soon after, the family moved
into a two-room flat with no toilet and a shared outhouse. During
a frigid winter they resorted to a bucket instead of treading
outdoors.
-
- Once settled back in England, Steven spent
two years attending a Raine's Foundation, where he was put in
the "A" stream. He formed a special bond with his English
teacher, Mr. Shivas, who encouraged Berkoff to explore his interest
in writing. He described his time at Raine's as "reasonably
happy". He remembered the Raine's girls in the school wearing
summer straw boaters and also recalls the "bizarre practices"
of caning, which you got for accumulating three 'ink entries',
which were given for simply chattering in class!
-
- Two years later, the Berks family moved to
subsidized housing in Manor House in the East End of London.
Due to the relocation, Berkoff transferred to Hackney Downs Grammar
School where, coincidentally, Harold Pinter was completing his
own studies. At Hackney Downs, Berkoff was inexplicably sent
down to the "C" stream of students, crushing his self-esteem
and causing him to lose interest in his studies. "The shock
of downgrading was so severe that I never really recovered, since
at the age of twelve I had great pride in myself and what I felt
to be my goals -- which were to be famous as either a 'writer,'
'a priest' or 'film star'" Berkoff's father, a tailor, discouraged
Steven from his own vocation, leaving the young man with little
direction and no role model. He was not happy at Hackney Downs
School: "I recall the tent life well. I became a victim.
Perhaps I always felt this and I was being bullied rather appallingly,
though for what reason I could never quite work out. Perhaps
the potential victim gives out signals of insecurity or need,
and this reinforces the other boys' sense of power. Frankly,
I was desperately lonely at Hackney Downs school, I felt a sense
of isolation".
-
- In 1952, age fifteen, Berkoff left school
at Manor House for a series of dead-end jobs such as an office
clerk, messenger boy, and salesman at a Cecil Gee clothing shop.
One day, Berkoff stole a bicycle with the intention of fencing
it for five pounds but was arrested and sentenced to three months
in a detention center for boys.
-
- Berkoff was now a rebellious teenager who
was exploring different areas of the cultural spectrum as he
continuously searched for an identity. He listened to music as
diverse as Chopin, Count Basie, and the 1950s crooner Johnnie
Ray. He also began thinking about a career as an actor, admiring
Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn, James Cagney, and Jack Palance.
The Hollywood screen "rebel" became the role model
that Berkoff was looking for. By the age of sixteen Berkoff was
out of school, a detention center alumni, and the veteran of
a series of dead-end jobs.
-
- Berkoff later saw a help-wanted advertisement
for Burberry's who needed help selling clothes overseas, at outposts
located near American army bases. He was hired, and in 1954,
at age eighteen, moved to Germany. While in Germany, Berkoff
picked up the book that changed his life, "a book by a man
with a strange name, Franz Kafka".
-
- For the next few years, Berkoff worked at
various shops in Germany and Iceland, but, having worked a plethora
of odd jobs from age fifteen to twenty-one, Berkoff never explored
the dream of his youth -- the theatre. He enrolled in theatre
classes at City Literary Institute and he threw himself into
his studies. In 1958, he admitted to the Webber-Douglas Academy
of Dramatic Art in London and granted a scholarship with stipend.
He then continued his training at the Laban School of Dance in
Morely College.
-
- Berkoff's first original stage play East,
was presented at the Edinburgh Festival in 1975. Acclaimed success
followed with other original plays including West, Decadence,
Greek, Kvetch, Acapulco, Harry's Christmas, Lunch, Sink the Belgrano,
Massage, Sturm und Drang, Brighton Beach Scumbags and Messiah.
-
- Among the many adaptations Steven Berkoff
has created for the stage, directed and toured are Kafka's Metamorphosis
and The Trial, Agamemnon (after Aeschylus) and Poe's The Fall
of the House of Usher. His plays and adaptations have been performed
in many countries and many languages. He has also directed and
toured productions of Hamlet, Macbeth and Oscar Wilde's Salome.
He has directed his plays and adaptations in Japan, Germany and
Los Angeles as well as Richard II and Coriolanus for the New
York Shakespeare Festival. His one-man show has toured Britain,
the USA, South Africa, Finland, Italy, Singapore and Australia.
-
- He has acted in films such as: A Clockwork
Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Passenger, McVicar, Outland, Octopussy,
Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo, Underworld, Revolution, Under the Cherry
Moon, Absolute Beginners, Prisoner of Rio, The Krays, Fair Game,
Flynn, Another 9 1/2 weeks, Legionnaire and most recently Rancid
Aluminium. He directed and co-starred with Joan Collins in the
film version of Decadence.
-
- He has published a variety of books such
as Gross Intrusion (Quartet Books) - a collection of short stories;
I Am Hamlet and Meditations on Metamorphosis (both Faber &
Faber), Coriolanus in Deutschland (Amber Lane Press), A Prisoner
in Rio (Hutchison) - all production journals; The Theatre of
Steven Berkoff (Methuen) - a photographic history of his productions
over the last two decades; America (Hutchison) and Overview (Faber
& Faber) - both travel writing and poetry collections; and
Faber & Faber published his autobiography Free Association.
His book of short stories entitled Graft: Tales of An Actor was
published by Oberon Books in 1998.
-
- Television productions include West (Limehouse/
Channel 4), Metamorphosis (BBC2), Harry's Christmas (Limehouse),
Silent Night, a reworking of Harry's Christmas (Initial/Channel
4) and The Tell Tale Heart (Hawkshead/Channel 4). Other television
credits include: Sins, Beloved Family, Knife Edge, The Professionals,
War and Remembrance, Michelangelo - Season of Giants, Star Trek
- Deep Space Nine and La Femme Nikita.
-
- Steven Berkoff has done a variety of voice
over work and books on tape including Kafka's Metamorphosis and
The Trial for Penguin Audiobooks. Radio productions include the
title role in Macbeth (Radio 4) and his musical debut as the
MC in Cabaret (Radio 2). He recently recorded An Actor's Tale,
a selection of his short stories, for Radio 4. He can also be
heard on the single by the dance group N-Trance... The Mind of
the Machine.
-
- Steven Berkoff's Official Website (www.stevenberkoff.com)
has details of all Berkoff's published books, and some exclusive
offers on books and Audio CDs and Videos unavailable elsewhere.
Iain Fisher also has a large and well-informed section on his
website (www.iainfisher.com/berkoff.html) devoted to Berkoff.
-
- Berkoff is still an enigma: a known mainstream
theatre artist who continuously rebels against the mainstream;
- and someone yearning for affection as he
spurns those willing to provide this affection. He has now gone
full-circle from a struggling actor to fringe performer to movie
star to director at the National Theatre and now he is returning
to his roots to reinterpret his early work while embracing his
original identity as outsider and basking in the light of critical
acceptance.
-
- Mr Berkoff currently lives in Limehouse,
East London.
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- {Mildly altered from http://www.georgedillon.com/theatre/steven_berkoff.shtml
and Creating the "Berkovian" Aesthetic - an analysis
of Steven Berkoff's Performance Style by Craig Rosen, Ph.D.)
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