Inside The Actors Studio creator and host James Lipton dies from bladder cancer age 93

Inside The Actor’s Studio’s creator and longtime host James Lipton has died, aged 93.Lipton, who died peacefully early Monday at his New York home, was suffering from bladder cancer, his wife Kedakai Turner told The Hollywood Reporter.In his 22 seasons hosting his iconic Bravo show, Lipton interviewed the greats of Hollywood, with nearly 300 stars joining him to answer questions about their craft in front of an audience of student actors. From Angelina Jolie to Al Pacino, Halle Berry to Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, Lipton was remarkably never turned down by an invited guest – bar the reclusive Marlon Brando.   ‘There are so many James Lipton stories but I’m sure he would like to be remembered as someone who loved what he did and had tremendous respect for all the people he worked with,’ his wife told TMZ on Monday.Starting with Paul Newman, each hour-long show featured Lipton quizzing his guest in his own unique style about their work, in what doubled as a masterclass for Lipton’s students at the Actors Studio, where he was dean. Many otherwise media-shy actors were willing to appear on Inside the Actors Studio because Lipton focused on their art and not the usual celebrity chatter or project promotion. Lipton did all his own research, noting his questions on blue cards. His intricate and distinctive questions – he would ask ‘What is your favorite curse word’ and ‘If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates’ – made him ripe for parody.Throughout the 2000s he was regularly spoofed on Saturday Night Live by Will Ferrell, who held a stack of notecards a foot long. Lipton was amused, telling CNN in 2012: ‘I love it. It’s very flattering. I think he’s got me cold.’One notable guest was Bradley Cooper, who first appeared on the show as a student in 1999, on Sean Penn’s episode. Cooper then returned in 2011, for his own interview. ‘The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair would be the night that I have waited for since we started this thing,’ Lipton told Larry King in 2016. ‘It turned out to be Bradley Cooper.’ Talking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016, Lipton said he never imagined that his show would be grow to be so popular.’If you had put a gun to my head and said, “I will pull the trigger unless you predict that in 23 years, Inside The Actor’s Studio will be viewed in 94 million homes in America on Bravo and in 125 countries around the world, that it will have received 16 Emmy nominations, making it the fifth most-nominated series in the history of television, that it will have received an Emmy Award for outstanding informational series and that you will have received the Critics’ Choice Award for best reality series host — predict it or die,” I would have said, “Pull the trigger.”‘In 2018 Lipton stepped down from hosting the show, which moved from Bravo to Ovation, where it continues today. While most well known for his work on the