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Jay Leyda was the only U.S. citizen to ever study with legendary Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein at the Moscow State Film School during the 1930s. He was an assistant director on the great director's Bezhin Meadow, a film that was banned from release and possibly destroyed. Before going to study in the Soviet Union, Leyda was a sound recording arranger in the Bronx. During the early 1920s, he directed a single short film. In 1936, Leyda returned from Moscow with the only whole print of his mentor's Battleship Potemkin left in existence. Leyda then worked at the Museum of Modern Art as an assistant film curator. During the '40s, he was an adviser in Hollywood and later became a noted film scholar. Among Leyda's contributions are several translations of Eisenstein's writings on film theory, and his own books that include Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film.