Get Our Extension
Select Wikiz in another Language
Settings
A
A
Text Highlights
Notes/Citations
Edit on Wikipedia

Share This Article

About Wikiz About Us Cookies Policy Terms & Services Privacy Policy Contact Contact us Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA
Enjoying Wikipedia Content? DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA

John Lahr

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way
John Henry Lahr
BornJohn Henry Lahr
(1941-07-12) July 12, 1941 (age 81)
Los Angeles, California, US
OccupationTheater critic, writer, biographer
EducationWorcester College, Oxford
Yale University
Spouse
Anthea Mander
​
​
(m. 1965; died 2004)​
​
(m. 2000)​
Children1
ParentsBert Lahr (father)
Mildred Schroeder (mother)
RelativesJane Lahr (sister)
Website
johnlahr.com

John Henry Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and writer.[1] From 1992 to 2013, he was a staff writer and the senior drama critic at The New Yorker.[2] He has written more than twenty books related to theater.[2] Lahr has been called "one of the greatest biographers writing today".[3]

Early life

Lahr was born in Los Angeles, California to a Jewish family.[4][1] He is the son of Mildred "Millie" Schroeder, a Ziegfeld girl, and Bert Lahr, an actor and comedian most famous for portraying the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.[2][5][6] When his father left movies for the stage, the family moved from their home in Coldwater Canyon to Manhattan.[7]

Until his father was on the cover of Time magazine when Lahr was in grade school, he did not know what his father did for a living.[8] Lahr wrote:

On stage, Dad was sensational; in private he was sensationally taciturn: a brooding absent presence, to be encountered mostly in his bedroom chair at his desk, turned away from us, with his blue Sulka bathrobe knotted under his pot belly. The Bert Lahr my sister and I call "Dad" is the ravishing performer, not the indifferent parent. We loved him; we just couldn't reach him. The public got his best self—inspired, full of prowess—the family got the rest. At home, Dad was depressed, bewildered, hidden; in front of the paying customers, however, he was buoyant and truthful—a bellowing, cavorting genius who could reduce audiences to a level of glee so intense that from the wings I once saw a man stuff a handkerchief in his mouth to stop laughing.[8]

However, Lahr did spend a lot of time with his father at theaters playing with props and costumes.[9] His childhood was also filled with access to Hollywood and Vaudeville celebrities who were his father's friends, such as Eddie Foy Jr., Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx, and Ethel Merman.[8]

Lahr received a B.A. from Yale University.[10] While there, he was a member of the literary fraternity of St. Anthony Hall and was an editor of the Yale Daily News.[11] He also has a master's degree from Worcester College, Oxford University.[10][7]

Discover more about Early life related topics

Bert Lahr

Bert Lahr

Irving Lahrheim, known professionally as Bert Lahr, was an American stage and screen actor and comedian. He was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion, as well as his counterpart Kansas farmworker "Zeke", in the MGM adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (1939). He was well known for his quick-witted humor and his work in burlesque and vaudeville and on Broadway.

Cowardly Lion

Cowardly Lion

The Cowardly Lion is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is depicted as an African lion, but like all animals in Oz, he can speak.

The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)

The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). An adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the film was primarily directed by Victor Fleming, and stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, while others made uncredited contributions. The music was composed by Harold Arlen and adapted by Herbert Stothart, with lyrics by Edgar "Yip" Harburg.

Coldwater Canyon

Coldwater Canyon

Coldwater Canyon is a canyon running perpendicular to and over the central Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles County, California.

Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Located near the southern tip of New York State, Manhattan is based in the Eastern Time Zone and constitutes both the geographical and demographic center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. Over 58 million people live within 250 miles of Manhattan, which serves as New York City’s economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and the city’s historical birthplace. Residents of the outer boroughs of New York City often refer to Manhattan as "the city". Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, and hosts the United Nations headquarters. Manhattan also serves as the headquarters of the global art market, with numerous art galleries and auction houses collectively hosting half of the world’s art auctions.

Time (magazine)

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on March 3, 1923, and for many years it was run by its influential co-founder, Henry Luce. A European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa, and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. The South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney.

Eddie Foy Jr.

Eddie Foy Jr.

Edwin Fitzgerald Jr., known professionally as Eddie Foy Jr., was an American stage, film, and television actor.

Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" as having made him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director, writing that "More than Chaplin, Keaton understood movies: He knew they consisted of a four-sided frame in which resided a malleable reality off which his persona could bounce. A vaudeville child star, Keaton grew up to be a tinkerer, an athlete, a visual mathematician; his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and a spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.

Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, singer, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit and one of America's greatest comedians.

Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known for her distinctive, powerful voice, as well as her leading roles in musical theater, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." She performed on Broadway in Anything Goes, Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy, and Hello, Dolly!

St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall or the Fraternity of Delta Psi is an American fraternity and literary society. Its first chapter was founded at Columbia University on January 17, 1847, the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. The fraternity is a non–religious, nonsectarian organization.

Worcester College, Oxford

Worcester College, Oxford

Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, 2nd Baronet (1648–1701) of Norgrove, Worcestershire, whose coat of arms was adopted by the College. Its predecessor, Gloucester College, had been an institution of learning on the same site since the late 13th century until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Founded as a men's college, Worcester has been coeducational since 1979. The Provost is David Isaac, CBE who took office on 1 July 2021

Career

Theater

Lahr started his career managing theaters.[9] In 1968, he was a literary adviser to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[2] He was an advisor to the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in Manhattan, New York from 1969 to 1971.[2] He also was a literary consultant for the Lincoln Center's Repertory Theater in the 1970s.[11][6]

He has adapted several books for the stage; these plays were performed at the Royal National Theatre in London, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and in the West End of London.[12]

In 2002, he co-wrote Elaine Stritch's one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty.[1] He and Stritch won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical for the show.[1][9][13][14] However, Lahr sued Strich, claiming she "cheated him of profits" from the play.[15]

Critic and writer

Lahr became a contributing editor to Evergreen Review in 1967.[11] At the same time, he was a freelance theater critic for The Village Voice and as a general theater editor for Grove Press.[11][12][6] He has also written for British Vogue, BroadwayWorld, the Daily Mail, Esquire, The Guardian, The Nation, The New Indian Express, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Slate, and The Telegraph.[16][2]

In 1992, when he was fifty years old, Lahr became a staff writer and a senior drama critic at The New Yorker magazine.[2][8] He wrote profiles, reviews, and behind-the-scenes portraits. He also began reviewing regional and international theater, expanding the magazine's coverage beyond Broadway for the first time.[2] His profiles are biographies consisting of 8,000 to 10,000 words.[8] Each article takes him three to four months to write and research.[17] Throughout his time at The New Yorker, Lahr profiled more than forty actors, including Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, Ingmar Bergman, Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Bob Hope, Eddie Izzard, Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Helen Mirren, Mira Nair, Mike Nichols, and Al Pacino.[8][18][5][7] One unique aspect of a profile by him is that "Lahr typically receives more access to his subjects than they've ever allowed before. Just as he wants to write about them, they want to be written about in his magazine."[18] For example, Sean Penn gave his mother's telephone number to Lahr.[18]

In 2000, his compilation book, Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles, included a profile of his mother who was a Ziegfeld Follies girl.[7] Lahr's most recent book, Joy Ride: Show People and Their Shows in the US (2015), is a collection of his New Yorker profiles on playwrights and directors, as well as some of his reviews of their work.[19]

He retired from The New Yorker in 2013.[2][17] His 21-year stint is the longest in the magazine's history.[17] He is currently a chief theater critic emeritus of The New Yorker and writes two profiles a year.[18][17]

Film

In 1987, Lahr co-produced Prick Up Your Ears, a film version of his 1978 book about a British playwright, Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton.[2][20] Lahr was portrayed in the film by Wallace Shawn.[18][20]

Lahr has also written movie scripts, including the short film Sticky My Fingers...Fleet My Feet which was nominated for a 1971 Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects.[2][21][11]

Author

When Lahr was 21 years old, he decided to connect to his father by writing a biography.[8] Eight years later, he finished the biography called Notes on a Cowardly Lion, the week before his father died.[17] Since then, he has written many other books, including the novels and biographies of theatrical figures.[2] His biographies include the Australian comedian Barry Humphries, Joe Orton, and Frank Sinatra.[11]

In 1994, Lahr published an expose in The New Yorker detailing the behavior of Lady Maria St. Just, the literary executor of playwright Tennessee Williams's estate.[22][20][6] Lahr's profile helped Lyle Leverich publish Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams after "a five-year legal stranglehold" by St. Just.[20][6] In 2000, Leverich died while working on a planned second volume about Williams, and named Lahr as his successor in this project; Lahr agreed to complete book, covering Williams from 1945 to his death in 1983.[23][3]

Lahr's stand-alone biography, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, was published in 2014.[3][6] In the United States, the biography won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Vursell Award, and the Lambda Literary Award for the best gay biography.[24][25][26] In the United Kingdom, it won the 2015 Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.[27]

Discover more about Career related topics

Guthrie Theater

Guthrie Theater

The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards.

Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Located near the southern tip of New York State, Manhattan is based in the Eastern Time Zone and constitutes both the geographical and demographic center of the Northeast megalopolis and the urban core of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. Over 58 million people live within 250 miles of Manhattan, which serves as New York City’s economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and the city’s historical birthplace. Residents of the outer boroughs of New York City often refer to Manhattan as "the city". Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world, and hosts the United Nations headquarters. Manhattan also serves as the headquarters of the global art market, with numerous art galleries and auction houses collectively hosting half of the world’s art auctions.

London

London

London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised Greater London, which is governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles

Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California, the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, and one of the world's most populous megacities. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits as of 2020, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.

Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in the 2021 United Kingdom census. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The two cities and the surrounding towns form one of the United Kingdom's most populous conurbations, the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, which has a population of 2.87 million.

Elaine Stritch

Elaine Stritch

Elaine Stritch was an American actress, known for her work on Broadway and later, television. She made her professional stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films and television series. Stritch was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995.

Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Elaine Stritch at Liberty is an autobiographical one-woman show written by Elaine Stritch and John Lahr, and produced by George C. Wolf, which is composed of anecdotes from Stritch's life, as well as showtunes and Broadway standards that mirror Stritch’s rise and fall both on and off the stage.

Drama Desk Award

Drama Desk Award

The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Following the 1964 renaming as the Drama Desk Awards, Broadway productions were included beginning with the 1968–69 award season. The awards are considered a significant American theater distinction.

Evergreen Review

Evergreen Review

The Evergreen Review is a U.S.-based literary magazine. Its publisher is John Oakes and its editor-in-chief is Dale Peck. The Evergreen Review was founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 until 1984, and was re-launched online in 1998, and again in 2017. Its lasting impact can be seen in the March–April 1960 issue, which included work by Albert Camus, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bertolt Brecht and Amiri Baraka, as well as Edward Albee's first play, The Zoo Story (1958). The Camus piece was a reprint of "Reflections on the Guillotine", first published in English in the Review in 1957 and reprinted on this occasion as the magazine's "contribution to the worldwide debate on the problem of capital punishment and, more specifically, the case of Caryl Whittier Chessman." Its commitment to the progressive side of the political spectrum has been consistent, with early stance for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. The image of Che Guevara that first appeared on the cover of its February 1968 issue, designed by Paul Davis and based on a photograph by Alberto Korda, became a popular symbol of resistance.

British Vogue

British Vogue

British Vogue is a British fashion magazine published based in London since autumn 1916. It is the British edition of the American magazine Vogue and is owned and distributed by Condé Montrose Nast. British Vogue's editor in 2012 claimed that, "Vogue's power is universally acknowledged. It's the place everybody wants to be if they want to be in the world of fashion" and 85% of the magazine's readers agree that "Vogue is the Fashion Bible". The current editor is Enninful. The magazine is considered to be one that links fashion to high society and class, teaching its readers how to 'assume a distinctively chic and modern appearance'.

BroadwayWorld

BroadwayWorld

BroadwayWorld is a theatre news website based in New York City covering Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional, and international theatre productions. The website publishes theatre news, interviews, reviews, and other coverage related to theater. It also includes an online message board for theater fans.

Daily Mail

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news website published in London. Founded in 1896, it is currently the highest paid circulation newspaper in the UK. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982, while Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. Content from the paper appears on the MailOnline website, although the website is managed separately and has its own editor.

Awards

Discover more about Awards related topics

American Academy of Arts and Letters

American Academy of Arts and Letters

The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headquarters is in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It shares Audubon Terrace, a Beaux Arts/American Renaissance complex on Broadway between West 155th and 156th Streets, with the Hispanic Society of America and Boricua College.

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh is a book by John Lahr first published in 2014. It is a biography of Tennessee Williams. It was published by Bloomsbury Publishing in the UK and by W. W. Norton Company in the US.

Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Award

Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature. The awards were instituted in 1989.

National Book Award

National Book Award

The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.

National Book Foundation

National Book Foundation

The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc., the foundation is the administrator and sponsor of the National Book Awards, a changing set of literary awards inaugurated 1936 and continuous from 1950. It also organizes and sponsors public and educational programs.

National Book Critics Circle Award

National Book Critics Circle Award

The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". The first NBCC awards were announced and presented January 16, 1976.

Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Elaine Stritch at Liberty is an autobiographical one-woman show written by Elaine Stritch and John Lahr, and produced by George C. Wolf, which is composed of anecdotes from Stritch's life, as well as showtunes and Broadway standards that mirror Stritch’s rise and fall both on and off the stage.

Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical

Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. For two years, in addition to the award for Outstanding Book, an award was presented to the writers of the Most Promising Book. Recipients of this honor were Melvin Van Peebles for Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death in 1972 and Ron House and Diz White for El Grande de Coco-Cola in 1973.

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadcasters, and digital streaming services.

George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism

George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism

The George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism is administered by the Cornell University Department of English and presented "to the American who has written the best piece of drama criticism during the theatrical year, whether it is an article, an essay, treatise or book." The prize was established by the prominent drama critic, George Jean Nathan, who instructed in his will that the net income of half of his estate be awarded to the recipient of the award. Today, the award amounts to about $10,000. Winners are selected annually by a committee composed of the heads of the English departments at Cornell University, Princeton University, and Yale University. Drama specialists from each university now also contribute to the selection process. The first prize was awarded following the 1958–1959 theatrical year.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the cultural life of New York City, The New Yorker has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue.

Evergreen Review

Evergreen Review

The Evergreen Review is a U.S.-based literary magazine. Its publisher is John Oakes and its editor-in-chief is Dale Peck. The Evergreen Review was founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 until 1984, and was re-launched online in 1998, and again in 2017. Its lasting impact can be seen in the March–April 1960 issue, which included work by Albert Camus, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bertolt Brecht and Amiri Baraka, as well as Edward Albee's first play, The Zoo Story (1958). The Camus piece was a reprint of "Reflections on the Guillotine", first published in English in the Review in 1957 and reprinted on this occasion as the magazine's "contribution to the worldwide debate on the problem of capital punishment and, more specifically, the case of Caryl Whittier Chessman." Its commitment to the progressive side of the political spectrum has been consistent, with early stance for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. The image of Che Guevara that first appeared on the cover of its February 1968 issue, designed by Paul Davis and based on a photograph by Alberto Korda, became a popular symbol of resistance.

Personal life

In July 1965, Lahr became engaged to Anthea Mander of Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton who he met while they both were attending Oxford University.[32][33] She was the daughter of the Liberal politician, art patron and industrialist Sir Geoffrey Mander.[32] They married on August 12, 1965, at St. Peter's Church in Eaton Square, London.[32] They also had a second wedding in New York City for Lahr's parents who were unable to travel to England.[32] After their marriage, they lived in New York City.[32] They had a son named Christopher.[17][7]

Lahr moved to London in 1973.[17] While he was still working for The New Yorker, he divided his time between the two cities, spending two weeks in New York City a month, returning home to London for the rest of the month.[18][10] Rather than maintaining a residence in New York, he rented the maid's room of producer Margo Lion's apartment.[18]

In 1988, Lahr began a relationship with New York-born ex-pat actress Connie Booth, co-writer and a cast member of Fawlty Towers and ex-wife of John Cleese.[34][7] Lahr and Booth lived together for fifteen years before marrying 2000.[34] They live in Highgate in north London.[34]

Lahr contributed to John Kerry's presidential campaign and Democratic organizations.[35] His sister is the editor and writer Jane Lahr.[36]

Discover more about Personal life related topics

Liberal Party (UK)

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Conservative Party, in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning as an alliance of Whigs, free trade–supporting Peelites and reformist Radicals in the 1850s, by the end of the 19th century it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and won a landslide victory in the 1906 general election.

Geoffrey Mander

Geoffrey Mander

Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander was a Midland industrialist and chairman of Mander Brothers Ltd., paint and varnish manufacturers in Wolverhampton, England, an art collector and Liberal parliamentarian.

Eaton Square

Eaton Square

Eaton Square is a rectangular, residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is the largest square in London. It is one of the three squares built by the landowning Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the 19th century that are named after places in Cheshire — in this case Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house. It is larger but less grand than the central feature of the district, Belgrave Square, and both larger and grander than Chester Square. The first block was laid out by Thomas Cubitt from 1827. In 2016 it was named as the "Most Expensive Place to Buy Property in Britain", with a full terraced house costing on average £17 million — many of such town houses have been converted, within the same, protected structures, into upmarket apartments.

London

London

London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and retains its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised Greater London, which is governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority.

New York City

New York City

New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States and more than twice as populous as Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city. New York City is located at the southern tip of New York State. It constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, entertainment, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world.

Margo Lion

Margo Lion

Margo Allison Lion was a producer for plays and musicals both on Broadway and off-Broadway, known for her role in producing the stage and screen hit Hairspray. Combined, the works Lion produced won 20 Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize.

Connie Booth

Connie Booth

Connie Booth is an American actress and writer. She has appeared in several British television programmes and films, including her role as Polly Sherman on BBC Two's Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then-husband John Cleese. In 1995 she quit acting and worked as a psychotherapist until her retirement.

Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers

Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the Radio Times.

John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus. Along with his Python co-stars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983).

John Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 68th United States secretary of state from 2013 to 2017 under Barack Obama and as a United States senator from Massachusetts from 1985 to 2013. He was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2004 election, losing to incumbent President George W. Bush.

Democratic Party (United States)

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Founded in 1828, it was predominantly built by Martin Van Buren, who assembled politicians in every state behind war hero Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party. Its main political rival has been the Republican Party since the 1850s, with both parties being big tents of competing and often opposing viewpoints. Modern American liberalism — a variant of social liberalism — is the party's majority ideology. The party also has notable centrist, social democratic, and left-libertarian factions.

Jane Lahr

Jane Lahr

Jane Lahr is an American author, editor, and literary agent, the daughter of actor Bert Lahr, and sister of The New Yorker drama critic John Lahr.

Publications

Books

Biographies and profiles

  • Notes on the Cowardly Lion (Knopf, 1970) ISBN 978-0713901672
  • The Business of Rainbows: The Life and Lyrics of E.Y. Harburg (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978) ISBN 9781585674237
  • Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography of Joe Orton (Lane, 1978) ISBN 978-0713910445
  • Coward the Playwright (University of California Press, 1983) ISBN 978-0520234147
  • Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization: Backstage with Barry Humphries (Bloomsbury, 1991) ISBN 978-0747510215
  • Sinatra: The Artist and the Man (Random House, 1997) ISBN 978-0375501449
  • Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles (Overlook Press, 2000) ISBN 978-1585670628
  • Honky Tonk Parade: New Yorker Profiles of Show People (Overlook Press, 2005) ISBN 978-1585677030
  • Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014) ISBN 978-0393021240
  • Joy Ride: Show People and Their Shows (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015) ISBN 978-0393246407
  • Arthur Miller: American Witness (Yale University Press, 2022) ISBN 9780300234923

Collected criticism

Fiction

As editor

  • Plays from the Eugene O'Neill Foundation (Grove Press, 1970)
  • The Orton Diaries (HarperCollins, 1986) ISBN 978-0413736505
  • The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan (Bloomsbury, 2002) ISBN 978-1582341606
  • Gem of the Ocean ( Theatre Communications Group, 2003) ISBN 9781559362818

Plays and film adaptations

  • Sticky My Fingers...Fleet My Feet (1969)[5][21]
  • Diary of a Somebody (Limelight Editions, 1989) ISBN 978-0879101244
  • The Manchurian Candidate (Dramatist Play Service, 1993) ISBN 978-0822213390
  • Accidental Death of an Anarchist[10]
  • The Bluebird of Unhappiness: A Woody Allen Revue[10]
  • Keys to the Kingdom (2019)[31]
  • Elaine Strich at Liberty (2002)[10][1]

Essays and reporting

  • Lahr, John. (January 1969) "In Search of a New Mythology", Evergreen Review, No. 62.[11]
  • — (Summer 1969) "Jules Feiffer: Interviewed by John Lahr.: The Transatlantic Review, 32: 38–47.[37]
  • — (November 24, 2008). "Land of Lost Souls". The Critics. Life and Letters. The New Yorker. 84 (38): 114–120.
  • — (April 5, 2010). "Telling it like it is: 'The Glass Menagerie' re-imagined". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. Vol. 86, no. 8. pp. 82–83.
  • — (November 15, 2010). "Angels on the Verge". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 86 (36). Retrieved April 30, 2012.
  • — (March 14, 2011). "Losers Take All". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 87 (4): 62–64.
  • — (April 4, 2011). "God Squad". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 87 (7): 76–77. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
  • — (November 7, 2011). "The Natural". Backstage Chronicles. The New Yorker. 87 (35): 31–37. Retrieved March 28, 2014.
  • — (January 30, 2012). "Boldfaced Bard". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 87 (46): 68–70.
  • — (February 13–20, 2012). "A Talent to Abuse". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 88 (1): 118–119.
  • — (November 19, 2012). "Supersize". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 88 (36): 94–95. Retrieved 2014-11-04.
  • — (November 26, 2012). "Unhappy Families". The Critics. The Theatre. The New Yorker. 88 (37): 84–85.
  • — (February 25, 2013). "Songs of Angry Men". The Talk of the Town. Credit Due Dept. The New Yorker. 89 (2): 26–27.
  • — (March 31, 2014). "Joy ride: Susan Stroman puts 'Bullets over Broadway' on Broadway". Profiles. The New Yorker. 90 (6): 50–59.
  • — (July 21, 2014) "A Last Lunch with Mike Nichols". Culture Desk. The New Yorker.
  • — (September 15, 2014) "Caught in the Act: What Drives Al Pacino" Profiles. The New Yorker. 90 (27): 58[38]
  • — (November 24, 2014) "Poster Boy" The Boards. The New Yorker.
  • — (September 21, 2015) "Julianne Moore, Beauty and the Beast". The New Yorker
  • — (October 24, 2016) "The Dynamism of Janet McTeer." The New Yorker.
  • — (December 19–26, 2016). "Act of Grace : Viola Davis Aims to Alter How African-Americans Are Seen". Profiles. The New Yorker. 92 (42): 52–64.
  • — (July 31, 2017) "Postscript: Sam Shepard Who Brought Rage and Rebellion Onstage". The New Yorker.
  • — (July 19, 2018) "Squealing to Survive", London Review of Books, 40 (14): 33–35.
  • — (September 8, 2014) "When He Acted it was Like Jazz". Daily Telegraph (London).[39]
  • — (September 24, 2018) "Sam Mendes's Directional Discoveries". Profiles. The New Yorker.
  • — (November 19, 2019) "Todd Haynes Rewrites the Hollywood Playbook". Profiles. The New Yorker.
  • — (September 20, 2020). "The Many Faces of Ethan Hawke". Profiles. The New Yorker.

Source: "John Lahr", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 19th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lahr.

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

Download Extension

Further Reading

A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams

Suddenly Last Summer

Sweet Bird of Youth

Bert Lahr

Private Lives

Elaine Stritch

Amanda Plummer

Terry Teachout

Hard Candy: A Book of Stories

The Red Devil Battery Sign

The Homecoming

Out Cry

Manhattan Ensemble Theatre

Columbia Theatre (New York City)

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
References
  1. ^ a b c d e f "John Lahr". IBDB: Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Contributors: John Lahr". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c Larman, Alexander (October 5, 2014). "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh Review". The Guardian. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  4. ^ "Stephen Frears & John Lahr". Independent on Sunday [London, England], September 6, 2015, p. 42. Gale General OneFile, Accessed May 18, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e New York State Writer's Institute (Summer 2002). "Writers Online Magazine Volume 6, Number 2". www.albany.edu. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Diamond, Robert. "New Yorker's John Lahr to End Run as Critic; Begin Profiles". Broadway World. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Campbell, Duncan (August 26, 2001). "Following Yonder Stars". The Observer (London, England). p. 80 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g "The Depressed Lion, Bert Lahr. His son, writer John Lahr: 'We loved Dad, we just couldn't reach him'". The Life & Times of Hollywood. November 27, 2018. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  9. ^ a b c "Bright lights; John Lahr on the theatre". The Economist, vol. 416, no. 8955, September 12, 2015, p. 80. Gale General OneFile, Accessed May 18, 2022.
  10. ^ a b c d e f "John Lahr". New York State Writer's Institute. 2002. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism | Literatures in English". Cornell University. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  12. ^ a b c "John Lahr | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  13. ^ a b "2002 Tony Award: Special Theatrical Event, Elaine Stritch at Liberty". Playbill. June 2, 2002. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  14. ^ a b "Drama Desk Awards Announced; Goat, Metamorphoses Tie for Best Play, Millie Scores". Playbill. May 20, 2002. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  15. ^ Perlow, Jonathan (June 25, 2009). "John Lahr Takes Elaine Stritch to Court". www.courthousenews.com. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  16. ^ "John Lahr". muckrack.com. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g Porter, William (September 25, 2015). "Writer John Lahr, Son of a Beloved Actor, Took His Own Theatrical Road". The Denver Post. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Tracer, Jake (September 1, 2007). "The Man in the Middle". The New York Review of Magazines. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  19. ^ "Nonfiction Book Review: Joy Ride: Show People and Their Shows by John Lahr". Publishers Weekly. September 1, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  20. ^ a b c d Taylor, Paul (September 21, 2014). "John Lahr on his Dazzling Biography of Tennessee Williams". The Independent. Archived from the original on June 13, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2014.
  21. ^ a b "Sticky My Fingers, Fleet My Feet (1970)". The Cave of Forgotten Films. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  22. ^ Lahr, John (July 28, 2014). "The Lady and Tennessee". The New Yorker.
  23. ^ Kondazian, Karen. "Spirit and Substance", Back Stage West, February 22, 2001. Retrieved on August 30, 2007.
  24. ^ a b "Previous Winners". Lambda Literary. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
  25. ^ a b "The National Book Critics Circle Award 2014". National Book Critics. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  26. ^ a b "2015 Literature Award Winners – American Academy of Arts and Letters". artsandletters.org. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  27. ^ a b Shenton, Mark (March 19, 2015). "John Lahr Wins London's Eighth Annual Sheridan Morley Prize for Tennessee Williams Biography". Playbill. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  28. ^ "Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh". National Book Foundation. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  29. ^ "31st Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Award Recipients". ASCAP Foundation. 1998. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  30. ^ "15th Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Award Recipients". ASCAP Foundation. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  31. ^ a b "Keys to the Kingdom - The National Arts Club". www.nationalartsclub.org. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  32. ^ a b c d e "Miss Anthea Mander Engaged". The Birmingham Press (Birmingham, England). July 27, 1965. p. 15. Retrieved May 21, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ^ "Marriage in London". Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). August 13, 1965. p. 5. Retrieved May 21, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ a b c "Life after Polly: Connie Booth (a case of Fawlty memory syndrome)". The Independent. May 2, 2008. Archived from the original on April 9, 2022. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  35. ^ Dedman, Bill (July 15, 2007). "The list: Journalists who wrote political checks". NBC News. Retrieved October 24, 2010.
  36. ^ Gross, Ed (June 2, 2020). "'The Wizard of Oz' Star Bert Lahr Remembered by His Daughter". Closer Weekly. Retrieved May 21, 2022.
  37. ^ Lahr, John (1969). Jules Feiffer: Interviewed by John Lahr. The Transatlantic Review, 32, 38–47. via JSTOR, accessed May 21, 2022
  38. ^ John, Lahr. 2014. "Caught In The Act". The New Yorker, September 15. Via EBSCO. Accessed May 21, 2022
  39. ^ John Lahr. When he acted it was like jazz. Daily Telegraph (London). September 2014:8,9. Accessed May 22, 2022. via EBSCO, accessed May 21, 2022.
Categories

The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.