Bella Itkin, renowned acting teacher, dies at 90
Bella Itkin — formally Bella Itkin-Konrath, informally Dr. Bella — a teacher who taught several generations of American actors, died on Wednesday, DePaul University has announced. She was 90.
Itkin taught at DePaul's Theatre School, previously the Goodman School of Drama, for 47 years, continuing to teach until 2000, and to mentor students well beyond that date. She remained a fixture in the halls of the school until close to her death. Itkin influenced the Chicago theater, and the American theater at large, for over 70 years.
After arriving in Chicago from Russia in 1932, when she just 12 years old, Itkin intially assisted her father, David Itkin, who had been a member of the Moscow Art Theatre's Jewish Theatre. She studied at what was then the Goodman School and also with the legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner, in New York.
In 1944, Itkin founded the Lake Zurich Playhouse, a Chicago theater of historic import that gave Geraldine Page, among others, her start. But although she directed over 200 student productions (including the Chicago premiere of Tennessee WIlliams' "Eccentricities of a Nightingale"), Itkin was best known as an acting teacher.
Prominent former students include Kevin Anderson, Linda Hunt, Harvey Korman, Joe Mantegna, Elizabeth Perkins, Michael Rooker, and Kevin O’Connor.
A funeral mass for Itkin will be said Saturday at 10 a.m. at the St. Vincent de Paul Church, 1010 W. Webster St.