Franz Lidz
Encyclopedia
Franz Lidz is an American
writer and journalist.
He was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated
, a contributing editor at Conde Nast
Portfolio, and is a correspondent for GQ, Sports Illustrated
, Men's Journal
, The Wall Street Journal
, The New York Observer, AARP the Magazine
, Slate
and has written for the New York Times since 1983, on travel, TV, film and theater.
His writing includes the childhood memoir Unstrung Heroes, the urban history Ghosty Men: The Strange But True Story of the Collyer Brothers and the golf memoir Fairway To Hell.
, to Sidney, an electronics engineer who designed the first transistorized portable tape recorder (the Steelman Transitape). His father gave him early exposure to authors like Samuel Beckett
, Harold Pinter
and Eugene Ionesco
.
At age nine, Lidz moved to the Philadelphia suburbs. Lidz attended high school in Cheltenham and later college at Antioch College
, where he was a theater major. He simultaneously acted in a rock musical called Suzie Nation and the Yellow Peril. Lidz played a singing biker with a chain fetish.
because he wanted a career that "was an 'ism' that would not become a 'wasm'." He began as one of three novice reporters at the weekly Sanford Star, where he wrote a column and covered police and fire beats, among other things. He also banked occasional finders' fees from the National Enquirer for story ideas he had passed along. Later, he left Maine to become a crime reporter and write a column called "Insect Jazz" for an alternative newspaper in Baltimore
.
In 1980, he joined the staff of Sports Illustrated
, even though he had never read the magazine and had covered only one sporting event in his life. In August that year, he was made the managing editor of the magazine.
Lidz's career highlights include a road trip in search of sports on the equator; a lengthy meditation on Don King
's hair, a look inside the mind games at the 1987 world chess championship between Garry Kasparov
and Anatoly Karpov
in Seville
, Spain
, three weeks in the Sahara
covering the 2002 Paris-to-Dakar Rally
, and a journey into the world of Jeopardy!
His essay on George Steinbrenner
and the New York Yankees
' line of succession was called the "scoop of the year" in the 2008 Houghton-Mifflin collection The Best American Sports Writing
.
in their heyday. He had previously written oddball features about two of the uncles in Sports Illustrated.
In his review of Unstrung Heroes in the New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
called the memoir "unusual and affecting... a melancholy, funny book, a loony tune played with touching disharmony on mournful woodwinds and a noisy klaxon." Jonathan Kirsch
of the Los Angeles Times
likened the memoir to a "miniature Brothers Karamazov. There's not a false moment in the book, and that is high praise indeed." The Village Voice
called Unstrung Heroes: "Astonishing, hilarious, angry, poignant, always pointed."
In 1995, Unstrung Heroes was adapted into a film of the same title
starring John Turturro
and Andie MacDowell
as Sidney and Selma Lidz, and directed by Diane Keaton
. The setting was switched from New York
to Southern California
, and the four mad uncles were reduced to an eccentric odd couple. Lidz was unhappy with the adaptation, but was prevented by his contract from publicly criticizing it. In a later essay for the New York Times, he said that the cinematic Selma had died not of cancer, but of 'Old Movie Disease'. "Someday somebody may find a cure for cancer, but the terminal sappiness of cancer movies is probably beyond remedy."
. Lidz has said that he was inspired by the real-life cautionary tales that his father told him, the most macabre of which was the tale of the Collyer brothers, the hermit hoarders of Harlem
. The book also chronicles the parallel life of Arthur Lidz, the hermit uncle of Unstrung Heroes, who grew up near the Collyer mansion.
Washington Post critic Adam Bernstein observed: "Ghosty Men has the breezy vibrancy of a magazine story. Like Unstrung Heroes, the new book has to its advantage a sympathy for the forgotten and keen observations about what consoles broken souls. The Collyer Brothers made compelling reading then, as they do now in this short, captivatingly detailed book." Adam Mansbach of the San Francisco Chronicle
wrote: "Franz Lidz brings thorough research and a deft, journalistic touch to this brief, readable tale, [and] does an elegant job of situating the famously odd brothers' lives within the context of a changing New York City." Luc Sante
, author of Low Life, wrote: "Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men is funny and moving and full of odd details, and it will make you clean up your room."
and the band members of Judas Priest
, and even a New England
farmer who raises llamas as caddies. The book includes reports from places like Zambia
, where 15 holes in a course are guarded by live crocodiles, the Fattie Open (where those weighing under 250 pounds are penalized), and a pitch-and-putt tournament at a Florida
nudist colony.
On the National Public Radio show Only A Game
, host Bill Littlefield
remarked: "Nobody who read Sports Illustrated during Franz Lidz’s employment there needs to be told that his writing is funny. Happily, his estimable wit is also evident in Fairway To Hell."
with novelist and former Sports Illustrated
colleague Steve Rushin
. Three of them appear under the title Piscopo Agonistes in the 2000 collection Mirth of a Nation
: The Best Contemporary Humor.
's Brandywine Valley with his wife Maggie (an author and historian at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware
), two daughters and an assortment of exotic pets. Lidz married his wife when he was still a grad student, a day after her high school graduation. His daughters Gogo and Daisy Daisy (Didi) were named after the protagonists in Waiting for Godot
.
Lidz has been a commentator for Morning Edition
on NPR, and a guest film critic on Roger Ebert
's syndicated TV show. He has also appeared on David Letterman
's show.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer and journalist.
He was a senior writer at Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
, a contributing editor at Conde Nast
Condé Nast Publications
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a magazine publisher. In the U.S., it produces 18 consumer magazines, including Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, as well as four business-to-business publications, 27 websites, and more than 50 apps...
Portfolio, and is a correspondent for GQ, Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
, Men's Journal
Men's Journal
Men's Journal is an American men's lifestyle magazine focused on outdoor recreation and comprising editorials on the outdoors, environmental issues, health and fitness, style and fashion, and "gear". It is owned by Jann Wenner of Wenner Media....
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, The New York Observer, AARP the Magazine
AARP The Magazine
AARP The Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine published by AARP, which focuses on aging issues. Established in 1958, it was known until 2002 as Modern Maturity. The editor is Nancy Perry Graham ; the managing editor is John Stoltenberg...
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
and has written for the New York Times since 1983, on travel, TV, film and theater.
His writing includes the childhood memoir Unstrung Heroes, the urban history Ghosty Men: The Strange But True Story of the Collyer Brothers and the golf memoir Fairway To Hell.
Early life
Lidz was born in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, to Sidney, an electronics engineer who designed the first transistorized portable tape recorder (the Steelman Transitape). His father gave him early exposure to authors like Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
and Eugene Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
.
At age nine, Lidz moved to the Philadelphia suburbs. Lidz attended high school in Cheltenham and later college at Antioch College
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...
, where he was a theater major. He simultaneously acted in a rock musical called Suzie Nation and the Yellow Peril. Lidz played a singing biker with a chain fetish.
Career
Lidz chose journalismJournalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
because he wanted a career that "was an 'ism' that would not become a 'wasm'." He began as one of three novice reporters at the weekly Sanford Star, where he wrote a column and covered police and fire beats, among other things. He also banked occasional finders' fees from the National Enquirer for story ideas he had passed along. Later, he left Maine to become a crime reporter and write a column called "Insect Jazz" for an alternative newspaper in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
.
In 1980, he joined the staff of Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
, even though he had never read the magazine and had covered only one sporting event in his life. In August that year, he was made the managing editor of the magazine.
Lidz's career highlights include a road trip in search of sports on the equator; a lengthy meditation on Don King
Don King
Donald "Don" King is an American boxing promoter particularly known for his hairstyle and flamboyant personality. His career highlights include promoting "The Rumble in the Jungle" and the "Thrilla in Manila". He also had a long association with Mike Tyson...
's hair, a look inside the mind games at the 1987 world chess championship between Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
and Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, three weeks in the Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
covering the 2002 Paris-to-Dakar Rally
Dakar Rally
The Dakar Rally is an annual rally raid type of off-road automobile race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation...
, and a journey into the world of Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
His essay on George Steinbrenner
George Steinbrenner
George Michael Steinbrenner III was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees. During Steinbrenner's 37-year ownership from 1973 to his death in July 2010, the longest in club history, the Yankees earned seven World Series...
and the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
' line of succession was called the "scoop of the year" in the 2008 Houghton-Mifflin collection The Best American Sports Writing
The Best American Sports Writing
The Best Sports Writing is a yearly anthology of magazine articles on the subject of sports published in the United States. It was started in 1991 as part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin...
.
Unstrung Heroes
Unstrung Heroes chronicles Franz Lidz's childhood, with his father Sidney and four uncles. Sidney is portrayed as the youngest and sanest. Lidz's four uncles, the Lidz Brothers, are mostly reminiscent of the raffish Ritz BrothersRitz Brothers
The Ritz Brothers were an American comedy team who appeared in films, and as live performers from 1925 to the late 1960s.Although there were four brothers, the sons of Austrian-born haberdasher Max Joachim and his wife Pauline, only three of them performed together. There was also a sister,...
in their heyday. He had previously written oddball features about two of the uncles in Sports Illustrated.
In his review of Unstrung Heroes in the New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt is an American journalist, critic and novelist who has worked in the field of books all of his professional career. He began as an editor for various New York City publishing houses, among them Holt, Rinehart and Winston and The Dial Press, from where he moved in 1965 to...
called the memoir "unusual and affecting... a melancholy, funny book, a loony tune played with touching disharmony on mournful woodwinds and a noisy klaxon." Jonathan Kirsch
Jonathan Kirsch
Jonathan Kirsch is a Biblical scholar, an attorney, and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. He is a bestselling author of books on religion, the Bible, and Judaism. He earned a B.A. degree in Russian and Jewish history from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a J.D. degree from Loyola...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
likened the memoir to a "miniature Brothers Karamazov. There's not a false moment in the book, and that is high praise indeed." The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
called Unstrung Heroes: "Astonishing, hilarious, angry, poignant, always pointed."
In 1995, Unstrung Heroes was adapted into a film of the same title
Unstrung Heroes
Unstrung Heroes is a 1995 American comedy-drama film directed by Diane Keaton. The screenplay by Richard LaGravenese is based on a memoir by journalist Franz Lidz.-Plot synopsis:...
starring John Turturro
John Turturro
John Michael Turturro is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing , Miller's Crossing , Barton Fink , Quiz Show , The Big Lebowski , O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Transformers film series...
and Andie MacDowell
Andie MacDowell
Rosalie Anderson "Andie" MacDowell is an American model and actress. She has received the Golden Camera and an Honorary César.-Early life:...
as Sidney and Selma Lidz, and directed by Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
. The setting was switched from New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, and the four mad uncles were reduced to an eccentric odd couple. Lidz was unhappy with the adaptation, but was prevented by his contract from publicly criticizing it. In a later essay for the New York Times, he said that the cinematic Selma had died not of cancer, but of 'Old Movie Disease'. "Someday somebody may find a cure for cancer, but the terminal sappiness of cancer movies is probably beyond remedy."
Ghosty Men
Ghosty Men (2003) is the story of the Collyer brothersCollyer brothers
Homer Lusk Collyer and Langley Wakeman Collyer , known as the Collyer brothers, were two American brothers who became famous because of their bizarre nature and compulsive hoarding...
. Lidz has said that he was inspired by the real-life cautionary tales that his father told him, the most macabre of which was the tale of the Collyer brothers, the hermit hoarders of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. The book also chronicles the parallel life of Arthur Lidz, the hermit uncle of Unstrung Heroes, who grew up near the Collyer mansion.
Washington Post critic Adam Bernstein observed: "Ghosty Men has the breezy vibrancy of a magazine story. Like Unstrung Heroes, the new book has to its advantage a sympathy for the forgotten and keen observations about what consoles broken souls. The Collyer Brothers made compelling reading then, as they do now in this short, captivatingly detailed book." Adam Mansbach of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
wrote: "Franz Lidz brings thorough research and a deft, journalistic touch to this brief, readable tale, [and] does an elegant job of situating the famously odd brothers' lives within the context of a changing New York City." Luc Sante
Luc Sante
-Early life:Born in Verviers, Belgium, Sante emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. He attended school in New York City, first at Regis High School in Manhattan and then at Columbia University.-Writing:...
, author of Low Life, wrote: "Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men is funny and moving and full of odd details, and it will make you clean up your room."
Fairway to Hell
Fairway to Hell is a 2008 memoir in which Lidz chronicles his adventures on golf courses with people like Bill MurrayBill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
and the band members of Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
, and even a New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
farmer who raises llamas as caddies. The book includes reports from places like Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
, where 15 holes in a course are guarded by live crocodiles, the Fattie Open (where those weighing under 250 pounds are penalized), and a pitch-and-putt tournament at a Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
nudist colony.
On the National Public Radio show Only A Game
Only A Game
Only A Game is a weekly sports program distributed by National Public Radio and hosted by Bill Littlefield. The show is produced at WBUR in Boston and airs on 210 affiliate stations around the country every Saturday...
, host Bill Littlefield
Bill Littlefield
William "Bill" Littlefield is the host of National Public Radio's Only A Game program, covering mainstream and offbeat United States and international sports...
remarked: "Nobody who read Sports Illustrated during Franz Lidz’s employment there needs to be told that his writing is funny. Happily, his estimable wit is also evident in Fairway To Hell."
Collaborations
Lidz has written numerous essays for The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
with novelist and former Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
colleague Steve Rushin
Steve Rushin
- Early life :Rushin grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, the third in a family of five kids. "Beer has long been in my blood, and not just in the literal sense," he wrote. "My ancestors were much practiced at naming bars." In 1946, his father's father, Jack Rushin, opened a saloon on Market Street...
. Three of them appear under the title Piscopo Agonistes in the 2000 collection Mirth of a Nation
Mirth of a Nation
Mirth of a Nation is a humor anthology edited by Michael J. Rosen.* Mirth of a Nation ISBN 0-06-095321-7* More Mirth of a Nation ISBN 0-06-095322-5* May Contain Nuts ISBN 0-06-051626-7-External links:* * *...
: The Best Contemporary Humor.
Personal life
Lidz lives on a six-acre farm in PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
's Brandywine Valley with his wife Maggie (an author and historian at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
), two daughters and an assortment of exotic pets. Lidz married his wife when he was still a grad student, a day after her high school graduation. His daughters Gogo and Daisy Daisy (Didi) were named after the protagonists in Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
.
Lidz has been a commentator for Morning Edition
Morning Edition
Morning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 05:00 to 09:00 ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon...
on NPR, and a guest film critic on Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
's syndicated TV show. He has also appeared on David Letterman
David Letterman
David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...
's show.
External links
- http://www.portfolio.com/contributors/Franz-Lidz
- http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/franz_lidz/archive/index.html
- http://www.gq.com/contributors/frank-lidz
- http://www.mensjournal.com/the-shark-is-back
- New York Times Resource search