Fran Lebowitz facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Fran Lebowitz
Lebowitz in 2011
Born	Frances Ann Lebowitz (1950-10-27) October 27, 1950 (age 74) Morristown, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Author public speaker actor
Nationality	American
Genre	Essays
Notable works	Metropolitan Life (1978) Social Studies (1981)

Fran Lebowitz (born October 27, 1950) is an American writer, speaker, and actress. She is well-known for her smart and funny observations about American life, especially from her experiences in New York City. She was also friends with many famous artists in New York during the 1970s and 1980s, like Andy Warhol and Martin Scorsese.

Fran Lebowitz became famous for her books Metropolitan Life (1978) and Social Studies (1981). These books were later put together into The Fran Lebowitz Reader in 1994. She has also been the subject of two films directed by Martin Scorsese: the HBO documentary Public Speaking (2010) and the Netflix series Pretend It's a City (2021). The New York Times newspaper has even compared her to the famous writer Dorothy Parker.

Early Life and School Days

Fran Lebowitz was born and grew up in Morristown, New Jersey. Her parents, Ruth and Harold Lebowitz, owned a furniture store. From a young age, Fran loved to read. She would often read secretly during class and sometimes didn't do her homework because of it. She says her Jewish background is more about her family and culture than religion. She has believed in atheism since she was seven years old.

Fran wasn't a great student overall. She found algebra especially hard, failing it six times! She once said it was "the first thing which they presented to me that I absolutely could not understand at all." She also worked at a Carvel ice cream shop. Because her grades were low, her parents sent her to a private girls' school. Her grades got a little better there, but she had trouble following the rules and was eventually asked to leave. She was also suspended from Morristown High School for leaving pep rallies without permission.

As a teenager, Fran was greatly influenced by the writer James Baldwin. She said he was the first intellectual she heard speak on television, and it made her want to read his work. She also enjoyed watching Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley on TV.

Starting Her Career

After leaving high school, Fran earned a certificate that showed she had the same education level as a high school graduate. When she was 18, she lived with her aunt for six months. Then, in 1969, she moved to New York City. Her father paid for her first two months there, but only if she stayed at a hotel just for women. After that, she stayed with friends and earned money by writing papers for college students. When she was 20, she rented her own apartment in the West Village.

At age 21, Fran worked for a small magazine called Changes. She sold ads and then wrote reviews for books and movies. Later, Andy Warhol hired her to write a column for his magazine, Interview. After that, she wrote for Mademoiselle magazine. During these years, she became friends with many artists, including Peter Hujar and Robert Mapplethorpe.

In 1978, her first book, Metropolitan Life, was published. It was a collection of funny essays, many of which had first appeared in Mademoiselle and Interview. The essays had titles like "Success Without College" and "A Few Words on a Few Words." In them, she often wrote about things that annoyed her in a dry, witty way. After the book came out, Fran became well-known in New York. She appeared on television and went to popular places. Her next book, Social Studies (1981), was another collection of funny essays. Years later, both books were combined into The Fran Lebowitz Reader (1994).

Writer's Block and Public Life

Since the mid-1990s, Fran Lebowitz has been known for having "writer's block," which means she has found it very hard to write new books. Her last published book was Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas (1994), which was a children's book about pandas living in New York City who wanted to move to Paris. Since then, she has worked on other book projects that haven't been finished. One of these was a novel called Exterior Signs of Wealth. Another book, Progress, had a part published in Vanity Fair in 2004, but it's still not finished. She once said her difficulty writing might be because she respects written words so much.

Lebowitz (right) with Harold Augenbraum, Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg during a panel discussion at the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival. Since the 1980s, Lebowitz has largely supported herself with speaking engagements.

Because of her writer's block, Fran Lebowitz has mostly supported herself by appearing on television and giving talks. She loves sharing her opinions and not being interrupted. She travels to give speeches and has appeared many times on Late Night with David Letterman. She also had a role as Judge Janice Goldberg on the TV show Law & Order from 2001 to 2007. She still writes articles sometimes for Vanity Fair, where she has been a contributing editor since 1997.

Through her public appearances, many people have come to know Fran Lebowitz's unique style. She is known for her smart jokes and observations about topics like New York City, art, books, and politics. She usually wears men's suit jackets, white shirts, cowboy boots, and Levi's jeans. She often talks about her special pearl-grey 1979 Checker taxi, which is the only car she has ever owned. In 2007, Vanity Fair named her one of the year's most stylish women. She also has a huge collection of 10,000 books and doesn't use modern technology like cell phones or computers.

In 2010, a new group of people discovered Fran Lebowitz when she was featured in Public Speaking, an HBO documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. The film included interviews and clips from her talks. She also appeared as a judge in Scorsese's 2013 movie The Wolf of Wall Street. She worked with Scorsese again on the 2021 Netflix series Pretend It's a City, where Scorsese interviews her about New York City and other topics.

Her Views

New York City Changes

Fran Lebowitz has often talked about how New York City has changed, especially how it has become more expensive. She says that in "Old New York," people who weren't rich could still live in Manhattan. She remembers a time when she could wake up with no money and know she could earn some by the end of the day. She believes this is no longer true because there aren't as many simple jobs.

She has criticized former New York mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. She feels they made New York more like a suburb and sped up the process of the city becoming more expensive. She also doesn't like the large number of wealthy people in New York City, believing they mostly just spend money rather than creating new things. She has said that promoting New York as a tourist spot was a "horrible idea" because it brings too many tourists and causes problems like a shortage of apartments.

When talking about people experiencing homelessness in New York, she said it's a "disgrace to the country" in such a rich city. In 2022, she discussed how important New York City is to her writing and how a sense of place matters to writers.

Impact of HIV/AIDS

In the 1980s, many of Fran Lebowitz's gay male friends died from HIV/AIDS. She has spoken about how losing so many talented artists and thinkers during those "plague years" created a big empty space in American culture. She noted that these men not only created art and ideas but also were the enthusiastic audiences who supported such culture. In 1987, she wrote an article in The New York Times about how AIDS affected the art community.

Politics

Fran Lebowitz is a liberal Democrat. She often criticizes politicians and policies that she sees as too moderate. She has been a strong critic of the Republican Party for many years, and more recently, of former President Donald Trump. She has said that Trump's appeal to his voters is "racism." She described Trump's campaign rallies as similar to those held by the Ku Klux Klan. She found Trump's election in 2016 to be "horrible" and felt very angry about it.

Lebowitz has also criticized other politicians. She dislikes Bill Clinton because she felt he moved the Democratic Party too far to the right. She has called Bernie Sanders "an unbelievably irritating narcissistic old man" who took votes away from her preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton. She often calls Ronald Reagan "the template for the stupid President," saying that before him, people didn't think a president could be unintelligent.

She believes the Second Amendment (which is about the right to bear arms) has been misunderstood. She thinks it means individuals have the right to form militias, not necessarily to own weapons for personal use.

Personal Life

Fran Lebowitz is open about her personal life and is a lesbian. She has mentioned that she finds romantic relationships difficult. In 2016, she said, "I'm the world's greatest daughter. I'm a great relative. I believe I'm a great friend. I'm a horrible girlfriend."

She was a close, longtime friend of the famous writer Toni Morrison. Fran Lebowitz is also known for not liking technology. She doesn't have a cell phone, a computer, or even a typewriter.

Work

Filmography

Film

Television

See also

In Spanish: Fran Lebowitz para niños