Biography

Stanley Cavell was born on September 1, 1926 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for The Wind Is Driving Him Toward the Open Sea (1968) and Screening Room (1972). He was married to Cathleen Cohen and Marcia Schmid. He died on June 19, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

He entered UC-Berkeley at age 16, and earned a BA in music. He worked his way through college playing in a jazz band. He attended the Juilliard School in Manhattan for a short time, but decided he was too old to train as a composer. He then took classes in psychology and philosophy at UCLA.

His family's original Polish name was Kavelieruskii, which he anglicized to Cavell.

He was a professor of philosophy at Harvard for more than 30 years. He often illustrated his ideas with examples from Shakespeare and movies. The first film that impressed him in a philosophical sense was Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night".

His mother played piano for vaudeville shows and silent movies; his father was a watchmaker and pawnbroker.