John Kirby<\/a>, an actor and acting coach, died Wednesday, three years after being diagnosed with ALS. He was 75.<\/p>\n\n\tThe news was confirmed on Instagram by Nathan Nesbitt, Kirby\u2019s acting studio manager and assistant of 22 years. \u201cI am here to officially, with a broken heart, announce the passing of our beloved John on the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 15, and it has been devastating for all of us, and we\u2019re trying to just find a way to cope,\u201d Nesbitt said.<\/p>\n
\n\tKirby was the son of actor Bruce Kirby (\u201cColumbo\u201d) and the brother of actor Bruno Kirby (\u201cThe Godfather,\u201d \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d).<\/p>\n
\n\tKirby was one of Hollywood\u2019s most respected and sought-after acting coaches. He coached members of the entertainment industry including Jeff Bridges, Jim Caviezel, Cameron Diaz, Chrissy Metz, Morris Chestnut, Judith Light, Ren\u00e9e Taylor, Jordin Sparks, Hillary Duff, Jeremy Sumpter, Lewis Tan, Frank Capra, Jessica Marie Garcia, Alyson Stoner and \u201cChicago Fire\u201d star Kara Killmer.<\/p>\n
\n\tAdditionally, he coached on location for feature films and television productions. For Walt Disney Pictures, his credits included \u201cThe Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,\u201d \u201cStick It,\u201d \u201cUnderdog\u201d and \u201cProm.\u201d He also coached on Universal Pictures\u2019 \u201cPeter Pan\u201d and Dimension Films\u2019 \u201cScream 4.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t turn on a television or watch a film without recognizing someone John coached, mentored or influenced,\u201d Nesbitt added in an additional statement. \u201cHis fingerprints are everywhere in this industry. His impact extends far beyond the performances we see on screen \u2014 it\u2019s woven into the very fabric of Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tKirby was first diagnosed with ALS in 2023, following a year of noticing symptoms. He suffered a fall and broken hip that led to his diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\n\tA celebration of life will be held Aug. 15 at 1 p.m. at the Hall of Liberty at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. It will be open to the public.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Kirby, an actor and acting coach, died Wednesday, three years after being diagnosed with ALS. He was 75. The news was confirmed on Instagram by Nathan Nesbitt, Kirby\u2019s acting studio manager and assistant of 22 years. \u201cI am here to officially, with a broken heart, announce the passing of our beloved John on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2509944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[442758],"class_list":["post-2509943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-john-kirby"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/John-Kirby-Dead-Celebrity-Acting-Coach-Was-75.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509945,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509943\/revisions\/2509945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2509944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}