Five Best...Famous New School Students

As appeared in last week's Inprint:

#5. Joel Schumacher

NYU gets Martin Scorsese, The New School gets the director of such classics as D.C. Cab (starring Mr. T and Gary “Crazy as Shit” Busey), Batman & Robin and The Phantom of the Opera.

#4. Jonah Hill

When I’m 24-years-old, I wouldn’t mind already having appeared in movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Even Almighty, Knocked Up and, most recently, starring alongside Michael Cera in Superbad. So, essentially, being in movies that consist of Judd Apatow and or Steve Carell.

#3. Bill Evans

One of the all-time great jazz composers and pianists, Evans went to Mannes in 1955—the same school that also taught Burt Bacharach a few years prior. And his haven been taught at The New School is a lot cooler than Rob Zombie, Ani DiFranco or Matisyahu also going here.

#2. John Cage

No, not the character from Ally McBeal but rather the American composer who, among other inventive ideas, was one of the first to experiment with “extended technique,” playing instruments in non-traditional ways. He’s one of the most famous composers our country has had and was a huge influence on bands like The Velvet Underground.

#1. Marlon Brando

The greatest actor of the 20th century actually went to our fair school. He took classes from Stella Adler at The New School for Social Research in the early 1940s and with those classes, he “learned” how to act and would eventually star in films like On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desiree and The Godfather.