Jay Landesman
Encyclopedia
Irving Ned Landesman was an American publisher, nightclub proprietor and writer long resident in London.
, the youngest of four children born to Benjamin Landesman, an immigrant Jewish artist from Berlin, and his wife Beatrice, who dealt in antiques. Their son changed his name to Jay after reading The Great Gatsby
during his teens.
While running an art gallery and salon in the Little Bohemia district of St Louis, Landesman founded the quarterly magazine Neurotica in 1948, based in New York City from 1949, which became an outlet for the Beat Generation
of writers including John Clellon Holmes
, Carl Solomon
(as Carl Goy), Larry Rivers
, Judith Malina
and Allen Ginsberg
. Dedicated to rather risqué material for its era, "contributors moved among the bases of art, sex, and neuroticism", the magazine closed in 1952 after the censors objected to an article on castration by Gershon Legman
who by then had taken over the magazine.
Back in St Louis, Landesman with his brother opened the Crystal Palace nightclub in 1952; the venue was previously used as a gay bar called Dante's Inferno. At Crystal Palace, Lenny Bruce
, Woody Allen
and Barbra Streisand
made early appearances. A musical The Nervous Set, based on a unpublished novel by Landesman, with a book co-written with Theodore J. Flicker
, premiered 10 March 1959 at Crystal Palace, St Louis, by now based in Gaslight Square
and enjoyed a long run there, but lasted only 23 performances on Broadway
. Featuring Larry Hagman
in a leading role, the show in New York suffered from mixed reviews.
Despite its overall failure in a more prominent location several of the songs written for the work by his second wife Fran Landesman
and the composer Thomas Wolf - "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" - have endured. Dedicated to the emergence of the Beat Generation, and sometimes described as the movement's only musical, it has an unusual form with a jazz quartet performing onstage and a downbeat ending. Landesman followed The Nervous Set by collaborating with writer Nelson Algren
on a musical version, again featuring lyrics by his wife, of Algren's novel A Walk on the Wild Side which opened at Crystal Palace in 1960. A cabaret review Food for Thought, with the Landesmans working with librettist Arnold Weinstein
, opened in St. Louis in 1962 and transferred to Yale.
MP Tom Driberg and his Filipino companion, a diary entry from 20 July 1964 reads:
in The Sunday Times
claimed: “There’s a very way-out Salinger family just arrived in London called the Landesmans.” Initially, the only person they knew in London was the comedian Peter Cook
, but their social circle expanded in the 'Swinging London
' milieu and their Islington home became the venue for hundreds of parties typical of the era. For Dearest Dracula, a musical staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival
in 1965, he persuaded actor Vincent Price
and choreographer Busby Berkeley
to participate.
In 1967 he became artistic director of the short-lived Electric Garden, a psychedelic nightclub, but a Yoko Ono
happening led to conflict with the management. Later enthusiasms included macrobiotic food
and a talent agency Creative Arts Liberated which had the slogan: "We take the sting out of success and put the fun back in failure!" It only had a brief existence, but the Polytantric Press founded in 1977 was more durable.
's own memoir of his family Star Struck: Fame, My Family and Me (2008) details his ambivalence about them, their self-promotion ("Hell has no hustler like Jay with a new project"), acid-trips and unconventional lifestyle.
The Landesmans were frank about their preference for an open marriage
, and went public in a interview in The Observer
in 1979, while Fran Landesman appeared in a television documentary The Infernal Triangle in 1984. Their son would find himself sharing breakfast with his mother's new boyfriend or father's new girlfriend.
, and musician Miles Davis Landesman, named after the jazz trumpeter
whom the couple had known. Landesman's papers before 1999 are housed in the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, University of Missouri-St Louis.
With the Beats
Born in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, the youngest of four children born to Benjamin Landesman, an immigrant Jewish artist from Berlin, and his wife Beatrice, who dealt in antiques. Their son changed his name to Jay after reading The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
during his teens.
While running an art gallery and salon in the Little Bohemia district of St Louis, Landesman founded the quarterly magazine Neurotica in 1948, based in New York City from 1949, which became an outlet for the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
of writers including John Clellon Holmes
John Clellon Holmes
John Clellon Holmes , born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was an author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel Go. Considered the first "Beat" novel, Go depicted events in his life with his friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat"...
, Carl Solomon
Carl Solomon
Carl Solomon was an American writer.-Biography:Solomon was born in the Bronx of New York City. His father's death in 1939 had a profoundly negative effect on his early life...
(as Carl Goy), Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
, Judith Malina
Judith Malina
Judith Malina is an American theater and film actress, writer, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre.-Early life:...
and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
. Dedicated to rather risqué material for its era, "contributors moved among the bases of art, sex, and neuroticism", the magazine closed in 1952 after the censors objected to an article on castration by Gershon Legman
Gershon Legman
Gershon Legman was an American cultural critic and folklorist.-Life and work:Legman was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Emil and Julia Friedman Legman, both of Hungarian/Romanian Jewish descent; his father was a railroad clerk and butcher...
who by then had taken over the magazine.
Back in St Louis, Landesman with his brother opened the Crystal Palace nightclub in 1952; the venue was previously used as a gay bar called Dante's Inferno. At Crystal Palace, Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
and Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
made early appearances. A musical The Nervous Set, based on a unpublished novel by Landesman, with a book co-written with Theodore J. Flicker
Theodore J. Flicker
Theodore Jonas "Ted" Flicker is an American playwright, theatrical producer, television and film director, actor, screenwriter, author, and sculptor.-Early life:...
, premiered 10 March 1959 at Crystal Palace, St Louis, by now based in Gaslight Square
Gaslight Square, St. Louis
Gaslight Square in Saint Louis, Missouri flourished from the early nineteen fifties into the mid-sixties. This entertainment district was located in an area close to the intersection of Olive and Boyle Streets, near what is now known as the Central West End neighborhood.-History:Gaslight Square was...
and enjoyed a long run there, but lasted only 23 performances on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. Featuring Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
in a leading role, the show in New York suffered from mixed reviews.
Despite its overall failure in a more prominent location several of the songs written for the work by his second wife Fran Landesman
Fran Landesman
Fran Landesman was an American lyricist and poet.-Early life:Born Frances Deitsch in New York City, her father was a dress manufacturer, her mother was a journalist...
and the composer Thomas Wolf - "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" - have endured. Dedicated to the emergence of the Beat Generation, and sometimes described as the movement's only musical, it has an unusual form with a jazz quartet performing onstage and a downbeat ending. Landesman followed The Nervous Set by collaborating with writer Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren was an American writer.-Early life:Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side...
on a musical version, again featuring lyrics by his wife, of Algren's novel A Walk on the Wild Side which opened at Crystal Palace in 1960. A cabaret review Food for Thought, with the Landesmans working with librettist Arnold Weinstein
Arnold Weinstein
Arnold Weinstein was an American poet, playwright and librettist, who referred to himself as a "theatre poet"....
, opened in St. Louis in 1962 and transferred to Yale.
In London
Landesman had married his second wife Fran in 1950, and the couple moved to London with their two sons in 1964. He hung out with the homosexual LabourLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
MP Tom Driberg and his Filipino companion, a diary entry from 20 July 1964 reads:
“We pub-crawled with Tom D. Ended up in a pub that could well be called the Spare Nobody Bar. Lesbians, transvestites, young Danish sailors powdered from head to toe, whores, ageing pederasts and young couples all in good humour. Tom D said it helped him to keep in touch with his constituency.”A December article by Hunter Davies
Hunter Davies
Edward Hunter Davies is a prolific British author, journalist and broadcaster, perhaps best known for writing the only authorised biography of The Beatles.- Early life :...
in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
claimed: “There’s a very way-out Salinger family just arrived in London called the Landesmans.” Initially, the only person they knew in London was the comedian Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...
, but their social circle expanded in the 'Swinging London
Swinging London
Swinging London is a catch-all term applied to the fashion and cultural scene that flourished in London, in the 1960s.It was a youth-oriented phenomenon that emphasised the new and modern. It was a period of optimism and hedonism, and a cultural revolution. One catalyst was the recovery of the...
' milieu and their Islington home became the venue for hundreds of parties typical of the era. For Dearest Dracula, a musical staged at the Dublin Theatre Festival
Dublin Theatre Festival
The Dublin Theatre Festival is Europe's oldest specialized theatre festival. It was founded by theatre impresario Brendan Smith in 1957 and has, with the exception of two years, produced a season of international and Irish theatre each autumn. It is one of a number of key post-World War II events...
in 1965, he persuaded actor Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
and choreographer Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...
to participate.
In 1967 he became artistic director of the short-lived Electric Garden, a psychedelic nightclub, but a Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
happening led to conflict with the management. Later enthusiasms included macrobiotic food
Macrobiotic diet
A macrobiotic diet , from "macro" and "bios" , a dietary regimen which involves eating grains as a staple food supplemented with other foodstuffs such as local vegetables avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods and most animal products...
and a talent agency Creative Arts Liberated which had the slogan: "We take the sting out of success and put the fun back in failure!" It only had a brief existence, but the Polytantric Press founded in 1977 was more durable.
Lifestyle
Jay Landesman wrote several volumes of autobiography Rebel Without Applause (1987), Jaywalking (1993) and Tales of a Cultural Conduit (2006). The latter book included his novel version of The Nervous Set. Cosmo LandesmanCosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman is a journalist and editor and son of Jay and Fran Landesman. With his then wife Julie Burchill, he set up the magazine The Modern Review. The magazine eventually folded, and Burchill left him for Charlotte Raven, one of the magazine's female interns.After the experience Landesman...
's own memoir of his family Star Struck: Fame, My Family and Me (2008) details his ambivalence about them, their self-promotion ("Hell has no hustler like Jay with a new project"), acid-trips and unconventional lifestyle.
The Landesmans were frank about their preference for an open marriage
Open marriage
Open marriage typically refers to a marriage in which the partners agree that each may engage in extramarital sexual relationships, without this being regarded as infidelity. There are many different styles of open marriage, with the partners having varying levels of input on their spouse's...
, and went public in a interview in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
in 1979, while Fran Landesman appeared in a television documentary The Infernal Triangle in 1984. Their son would find himself sharing breakfast with his mother's new boyfriend or father's new girlfriend.
Death
Jay Landesman died on 20 February 2011, while his wife died the following 23 July. The couple are survived by their two sons, The Sunday Times film critic Cosmo, formerly married to the journalist Julie BurchillJulie Burchill
Julie Burchill is an English writer and journalist. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She is a self-declared "militant feminist". She has several times been involved in legal action...
, and musician Miles Davis Landesman, named after the jazz trumpeter
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
whom the couple had known. Landesman's papers before 1999 are housed in the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, University of Missouri-St Louis.