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A short 20-mile trip up the Hudson into Westchester County is Tarrytown, N.Y., where actor Keith Hamilton Cobb was reared. Cobb developed his affinity for the cinema from his youthful days of spending $1.50 to watch movies at the famous Tarrytown Music Hall.
"All of the land on the east side of the Hudson was very stratified. Generally, the lower-income folks were down by the train tracks, and it became more and more affluent and white as you ascended the hill. My neighbors were primarily Italian and Jewish. My parents were professional and some of the first people of color to buy property somewhere in the middle of the hill," recalled Cobb.
It wasn't until after high school that Cobb considered acting. The initial plan was to do some writing and then teach.
"I was in junior college studying English and trying to write and thinking I might teach but really having no idea what I was going to do. I was working on Shakespeare but was having difficulty reading it. I think Shakespeare was never really meant to be read. It was never meant to be presented to people as literature. It is not literature. It's living form. It was meant to be performed. I realized that when Shakespeare is done well it becomes very clear because it's really about life."
Keith decided to continue his studies and applied to NYU. He was accepted and ended up earning a BFA degree. Cobb decided against pursuing a master's degree in theater.
"I didn't see any value in pursuing a master's degree. What does one do with it? I no longer wanted to teach. No one goes to an acting school to learn to be a teacher. People leave there to act. Were I to have the opportunity to teach, I...