Family and former students of Stella Adler gathered in front of the her namesake theater Friday as the actress and acting teacher was honored with a posthumous star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Adler started acting at age 4. In 1949, she founded a school now known as the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Her student list reads like a who's who of Hollywood: Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, Candice Bergen, Warren Beatty and Benicio Del Toro, among others. She died in 1992.

"I owe way too much to Stella Adler," Del Toro said at the ceremony on Hollywood Boulevard. "One of the things I owe her for is the seriousness and intensity to how she approached acting."

Another former student, actor Mark Ruffalo, said he "could barely put two sentences together" when he started studying with Adler.

"The fact that I'm here is a testimony to Stella," he said.

The Stella Adler Theatre celebrated its 20th anniversary last year.