<P> Wallach was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, at 156 Union Street, a son of Jewish immigrants Abraham and Bertha (Schorr) Wallach, both from Poland . He had a brother and two sisters, with his family being the only Jews in an otherwise Italian American neighborhood . His parents owned Bertha's Candy Store . Wallach graduated in 1936 from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history . While at the university, he performed in a play with fellow students Ann Sheridan and Walter Cronkite . In a later interview, Wallach said that he learned to ride horses while in Texas, adding that he liked Texas because "it opened (his) eyes to the word friendship ." He explained, "You could rely on people . If they gave you their word, that was it...It was an education ." </P> <P> Two years later he received a master of arts degree in education from the City College of New York . He gained his first method acting experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City, where he studied under Sanford Meisner . There, according to Wallach, actors were forced to "unlearn" all their physical and vocal mannerisms, while traditional stage etiquette and "singsong" deliveries were "utterly excised" from his classroom . </P> <P> Wallach's education was cut short when he was drafted into the United States Army in January 1941 . He served as staff sergeant in a military hospital in Hawaii and later sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Abilene, Texas to train as a medical administrative officer . Commissioned a second lieutenant, he was ordered to Casablanca . Later, when he was serving in France, a senior officer noticed his acting career and asked him to create a show for the patients . He and his unit wrote a play called Is This the Army?, which was inspired by Irving Berlin's This Is the Army . In the comedy, Wallach and the other actors mocked Axis dictators, with Wallach portraying Adolf Hitler . </P> <P> Wallach took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator . He later became a founding member of the Actors Studio, taught by Lee Strasberg . There, he studied more method acting technique with founding member Robert Lewis, and with other students including Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, Sidney Lumet, and his soon - to - be wife, Anne Jackson . Wallach became Marilyn Monroe's first new friend when she became a student at the Actors Studio, once insisting on watching him perform in The Teahouse of the August Moon from the backstage wings, simply to see up close how experienced actors perform a two - hour play . She also became friends with his wife, Anne Jackson, also studying at the Studio, and would visit the couple at their home and sometimes babysit their new child . </P>

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