An actor/instructor with Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre beginning in 1911, she toured throughout Europe during the Communist Revolution and appeared in over 100 plays. When the company departed for Moscow after a tour in the United States, she remained behind.
Co-founder of the American Laboratory Theater with the Polish actor/film director Richard Boleslawski, she was the first Russian actor from the Moscow Art Theatre to teach the Stanislavski Method in the United States. Her methods greatly influenced her young students Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, founders the Group Theater (1931-1940). Strasberg first practiced his very personal variation of the system, now known as "The Method," with the Group actors Stella Adler, Luther Adler, Sanford Meisner, Elia Kazan, Clifford Odets, Franchot Tone, Morris Carnovsky, John Garfield and Robert Lewis. Adler went on to teach Marlon Brando; Meisner taught Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton; Lewis taught Meryl Streep. What the world knows as the psychologically realistic American acting style can be traced
Her gravestone at Forest Lawn Cemetery gives her year of birth as 1887, instead of the correct year of 1876.
In 1936 she became the first actress, tied with Gale Sondergaard, of currently 53 actresses to receive an Oscar nomination for their film debut. She was nominated Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Dodsworth (1936).
Is portrayed by Celia Lovsky in Harlow (1965/II)
She died of a stroke three days after a lit cigarette set fire to her bed.
She received two supporting Oscar nominations, for the films Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939). She appeared in the former for only four minutes and in the latter, a total of ten minutes.
Studied opera in both Warsaw and Moscow but switched acting and began studying at the Adasheff's School of Drama at the age of 30.
Taught acting at New York's American Laboratory Theatre in the 20s until forming her own acting school, the Maria Ouspenskaya School of Dramatic Arts, in 1929. She moved the studio to Hollywood in the late 30s when her film career began to flourish. Some of her more famous students included John Garfield and acting gurus Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg.