Sandy Meisner (August 31, 1905 – February 2, 1997) was an American actor and acting coach who developed an acting methodology, now known as the Meisner Technique.

Early life

Born Sanford Meisner in Brooklyn, he was the oldest of four children of Hermann Meisner, a furrier, and Bertha Knoepfler, Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from Hungary.The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Vol 5 (2002) Two years later, his younger brother Jacob, who would come to have a lasting effect on Meisner, was born. In an attempt to improve Sanford's health, one year later, the family took a trip to the Catskills, where Jacob was fed unpasteurized milk. As a result, the child contracted bovine tuberculosis and died shortly thereafter. In an interview many years later, Meisner would identify this event as “the dominant emotional influence in my life from which I have never, after all these years, escaped.”Longwell, Dennis and Sanford Meisner. Sanford Meisner on Acting. New York: Random House, 1987, p. 5. Blamed by his parents for his brother's death, the young Meisner would soon become isolated and withdrawn, unable to cope with feelings of guilt for his brother’s death.