York City's Stuyvesant High School, but finally graduated from Saint Simon Stock in the Bronx. Years later, he said that the discovery of his love for acting saved him from a life of crime during his teen years. He went to City College of New York to study electrical engineering. After two years, he relented. He took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator and afterward joined the Actors Studio. Career Early career Gazzara guest-starred on shows like Treasury Men in Action and Danger. He received acclaim for his off-Broadway performance in End as a Man in 1953. The production was transferred to Broadway and ran until 1954. In 1954, Gazzara (having modified his original surname from "Gazzarra") made several appearances on NBC's legal drama Justice, based on case studies from the Legal Aid Society of New York. He also guest-starred on shows such as Medallion Theatre and The United States Steel Hour. Broadway success Gazzara became a Broadway sensation when he portrayed the role of Brick in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955–56) opposite Barbara Bel Geddes, directed by Elia Kazan. Gazzara turned down the role in the film version. The studio planned to offer the role to James Dean, but the part was given to Paul Newman after Dean's death. He followed it with another long run in A Hatful of Rain (1956). Film work He joined other Actors Studio members in the 1957 film The Strange One produced by Sam Spiegel. He had a Broadway flop with The Night Circus (1958) and continued to guest-star on shows like Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theatre, Armchair Theatre and DuPont Show of the Month. His second film was a high-profile performance as a soldier on trial for avenging his wife's rape in Otto Preminger's courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Gazzara told Charlie Rose in 1998 that he went from being mainly a stage actor who often would turn up his nose at film roles in the mid-1950s to, much later, a ubiquitous character actor who turned very little down. "When I became hot, so to speak, in the theater, I got a lot of offers," he said. "I won't tell you the pictures I turned down, because you'll say, 'You are a fool'—and I was a fool." He went to Italy