Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov (Russian: Михаил Александрович Чехов, August 29 1891 in Moscow - September 30 1955 in Beverly Hills, California) was an Academy Award-nominated Russian-American actor, director, author, and developer of his own acting technique used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, and Robert Stack.

Michael Chekhov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1891. His mother Natalya Golden was Jewish, and his father Aleksandr Chekhov was a brother of writer Anton Chekhov, who wrote about his nephew in 1895, "I believe that he has a growing talent". In 1907-11 he studied classic drama and comedy at Suvorin Theater School, from which he graduated with honors. In St. Petersburg, he met with Stanislavsky, who invited Michael Chekhov to join the Moscow Art Theater. Later Stanislavsky wrote that Anton Chekhov's nephew Michael was a genius. His film career began in 1913 with a role in "Tercentennary of the Romanov Dynasty", followed by five more roles in Russian silent films. During the Russian Revolution of 1917 his beloved first wife Olga Tchechowa divorced him, and he suffered from depression and alcoholism for the rest of his life. He led the second Moscow Art Theater in 1922-28, experimenting with symbolism and acmeism. He updated Stanislavsky's acting method, blended with yoga, theosophy, psychology and physiology, with his own ideas of transformation of actor's consciousness, of "psychological gesture", and movement techniques for entering a special state of subconscious creativity. His idea of using the actor's own intuition and creative imagination was a departure from his teacher's method. He joined the anthroposophic society and fell under suspicion. He emigrated from Russia in 1928, and soon made a big success in German films, co-starring with his ex-wife Olga Tchechowa, who lived in Germany with her second husband. In 1931 he founded the "Chekhov Theatre", with support from Rachmaninov, Bohner and Morgenstern, and in 1935 he brought the "Chekhov Theatre" on tour to New York. He taught acting in France, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, and in England, before WWII. In 1938 he moved to the United States, where he started his own school, and successfully directed Dostoyevsky's "Demons" on Broadway. In 1942 he was introduced to Hollywood by Rachmaninov. In 1945 Michael Chekhov played his best film role, psychiatrist Brulov in Spellbound, and was nominated for an Oscar and became a member of the American Film Academy in 1946. In 1953 he published a book "To The Actor" about his acting method, with preface written by Yul Brynner. His students were Gregory Peck, Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance, Feodor Chaliapin, Elia Kazan, Clint Eastwood, and many other Hollywood actors and directors. He died in 1955, in Beverly hills, and was buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.