R.I.P.: James Lipton, TV Host, Former Radio Actor

James Lipton, the elegant, articulate wordsmith and theater academic whose desire to give his acting students a greater insight into their art led to the popular Bravo series Inside the Actors Studio, has died.

He was 93, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Lipton died early Monday at his home in Manhattan from bladder cancer, his wife, Kedakai Mercedes Lipton, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Before he hosted the long-running Bravo series, Lipton played the Lone Ranger's nephew on the radio and wrote TV scripts and Broadway lyrics.

Conceived by Lipton in 1994, Inside the Actors Studio was created to serve as a thinly disguised master class for the students of the Actors Studio Drama School, a joint venture of the Actors Studio and The New School. With Paul Newman as its initial guest, each one-hour program featured a top performer in an intimate and in-depth one-on-one interview with Lipton.

Nearly 300 subjects, including many Oscar and Emmy winners, shared the secrets of their craft with Lipton and his audience of students before the TV cameras. The show became one of cable's longest-running series.

Lipton was born on Sept. 19, 1926, in Detroit. His parents divorced when Lipton was 6, and his dad abandoned the family.

To help make ends meet, Lipton began working while in his teens as a copy boy for The Detroit Times and as an actor for the Catholic Theater of Detroit. In 1944, after graduating high school, he landed the role of Dan Reid, the nephew of the Lone Ranger, on WXYZ's radio program about the masked Western hero.