March 28, 1940 — June 20, 2026
Actor · Director · Teacher · Mentor

It is with profound sadness that HB Studio announces the passing of Jim Boerlin on June 20, 2026 at the age of 86. A quietly formidable presence in the American theater for more than six decades, Jim was an actor, director, teacher and institution-builder whose devotion to the craft and to his fellow artists never wavered. He is survived by his wife, Cathe Linton.

Jim entered the world with little guaranteed to him. He was orphaned as an infant and adopted at the age of six by Ruth and Edwin Boerlin of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, who gave him his home and his name. At sixteen, Jim discovered the stage through summer stock productions. From that moment forward, the theater was his true country.

Determined to attend Baylor University in Waco, Texas to study with the legendary Paul Baker, Jim worked nights and weekends to make his tuition. Jim eventually moved to New York to pursue acting in earnest. It was there that he found HB Studio, his lifelong artistic home. The rigorous, humane tradition embodied by his teachers, Herbert Berghof and Uta Hagen, informed everything Jim did. Jim would go on to a professional career performing in and directing countless productions in New York City, regionally and internationally. His extensive and eclectic stage work encompassed the full classical and comic range.

If the stage was Jim’s instrument, teaching was his deepest vocation. Over the years, he would teach at Carnegie Mellon University, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Adelphi University, Primary Stages Company and at his beloved alma mater of HB Studio. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was a core acting instructor and eventually served as Executive Director at the Michael Chekhov Studio alongside its co-founder, Beatrice Straight. Jim was co-founder of both the Hoboken Theatre Company and the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Theatre Company, the latter of which saw him appointed to the Pennsylvania Arts Council. He served as co-chair of the HB Studio Artistic Council during a crucial time after Uta’s passing. Jim was instrumental in the creation of the Hagen Institute at HB Studio and served as its program administrator from 2010 until his death, mentoring countless students. Even after years apart, he would often show up to witness a former student’s work, still offering the same warmth and exacting attention that could be found in his classroom.

One Saturday in 1974, Jim was walking along Canal Street with two friends when he noticed a young woman, Cathe Linton, selling her jewelry designs at a street fair. Jim ordered a custom silver chain from her which, conveniently, required him to come and collect it at her Soho loft. Cathe later said that they both knew immediately that they had found each other in the crowd and would never let go. She would be his companion for more than fifty years and remained, until the end, the great love of his life. Jim and Cathe built a life rooted in community. They kept two homes: an apartment on Bank Street in the West Village and a house in Warwick, New York. Both places held the particular gravity of a life fully inhabited, but their Warwick home also engendered a deep connection to Christ Church and its parishioners.

Jim Boerlin gave the theater more than sixty years of his life and it gave him back an entire world: language, communion, students who became colleagues and friends, a place to stand. He was a man who had been given away once, then reclaimed himself. He would spend the rest of his years helping others to do the same.