About the author, 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 Bar bra 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.

Shortly after the atomic bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki, Eli was presented with the dubious distinction of being one of the 4 man detail of Marines who were assigned to guard the devastated area.The US had not been sufficiently alerted to the possibility of the men contracting radiation poisoning .Consequently, after Eli was discharged from the Service, the Veterans Administration vigilantly took a blood sample from Eli, which turned out Negative, but he was told to report back for a yearly blood test.

Finally, when he was approaching his 60th birthday he told the doctors” if I haven’t cancer by this time,I can spend my time better,doing something else!”, and so didn't’t trouble himself to return to the VA. However, stuck in his memory was the sight of the children's ‘jungle gym’ in a Nagasaki Schoolyard, the equipment melted down, almost unrecognizable. It was this indelible image that forevermore underlined his strong antiwar sentiments.

PAUL NEWMAN starring in broadway production of TENNESSEE WILLIAMS play SWEETBIRD OF YOUTH was coached by mr.Rill.

assistant to ELI KAZAN, RILL went on to direct the next WILLIAMS play I RISE IN FLAME CRIED THE PHOENIX (FESTIVAL OF TWO WORLDS, Spoleto, ITALY)

He then went on to adapt and direct JAMES BALDWIN's play GIOVANNIS ROOM (New York production)