Eli Rill

During World War II, Rill spent three years in the South Pacific, Second Marine Division (Saipan, Okinawa and Nagasaki). After the war he began his writing and acting career on both stage and screen. Eli adapted and directed Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio Production of both Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Conversation at Midnight, and James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room and also three successful children’s musicals in New York, Toronto, and Los Angeles. He and Philip Yordan co-wrote the screenplay for The Harder They Fall, Humphrey Bogart’s last film. Rill also worked on the film as Bogart’s acting coach. Rill co-founded with Elia Kazan and Arthur Penn, the Actors’ Studio Playwrights Unit in New York. He was Artistic Director of Drama Development for the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, and for eight years, Chairman of the Drama Department, Ontario College of Art. In addition to Bogart, he has coached and directed Barbra Streisand, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Shelly Winters, John Candy, Rip Torn and Kevin McCarthy. His acting credits include work with Peter O’Toole, Rod Steiger, Roddy McDowall, Barry Sullivan and Patricia Neal, among other prominent actors. Eli Rill now writes novels in his studio in Canoga Park, California.