Lawrence Holofcener
Encyclopedia
Lawrence Holofcener is an American poet, lyricist, playwright, artist, novelist, actor, director and sculptor. He has dual British and American nationality.
and the University of Wisconsin where he met and performed with Jerry Bock
. They went on to write songs for Big as Life and Your Show of Shows
, starring Sid Caesar
, Imogene Coca
and Carl Reiner
. They wrote the Broadway stage scores for Mr. Wonderful
and Catch a Star. He joined ASCAP in 1956, his other popular-song compositions include "Without You I'm Nothing", "Raining, It's Raining", "Too Close for Comfort" and "The Story of Alice" which was recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio. His play Before You Go began on Broadway and has been produced in regional theaters in the United Kingdom, Paris, Sweden, and Mexico City. His musical play, "I Don't Live There Anymore", written with composer Gerard Kenny
, received its American premiere at the 1993 Spoleto Festival USA
in Charleston, SC.
.
Lawrence Holofcener's first exhibition was in 1979 at the Gibbes Museum of Art
in Charleston, South Carolina
. It was followed by many shows, awards and commissions. During his exhibition at AT&T's Education Center in Princeton, New Jersey, Lawrence produced The Box, a piece which was added to their collection.
In 1985 at the Chichester Festival Theatre
, Laurence Olivier
unveiled Holofcener's portrait, "Faces of Olivier", and ten years later to the day on Bond Street
in London, Princess Margaret unveiled his portraits of Winston Churchill
and Franklin Roosevelt. "Allies" has fast become one of London's tourist attractions. Commissions include Queen Victoria for the Isle of Wight's Museum of Island History and Coburg, Germany, as well as a life-size bronze of Thomas Paine
at Bordentown, New Jersey
.
Other life-size portraits of Thomas Chatterton
, William Tyndale
and William Penn
are in Bristol, England. In 1998, Holofcener embarked on a major series celebrating the contributions made by 20th Century icons, among them Albert Einstein
, John F Kennedy, Mother Teresa
, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela
, Frank Sinatra
, Muhammad Ali
, Mahatma Gandhi
, Anne Frank
, Eleanor Roosevelt
, Leonard Bernstein
, Albert Schweitzer
, the Three Tenors and John Lennon
.
Songwriter and musical writer
As a singer/songwriter he was known as Larry Holofcener. Holofcener attended University of MarylandUniversity of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
and the University of Wisconsin where he met and performed with Jerry Bock
Jerry Bock
Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Bock was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical Fiorello! and the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist for the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof with...
. They went on to write songs for Big as Life and Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows
Your Show of Shows is a live 90-minute variety show that appeared weekly in the United States on NBC , from February 25, 1950, until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca....
, starring Sid Caesar
Sid Caesar
Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2.- Early life :Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York,...
, Imogene Coca
Imogene Coca
Imogene Fernandez de Coca was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows....
and Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner is an American actor, film director, producer, writer and comedian. He has won nine Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during this career...
. They wrote the Broadway stage scores for Mr. Wonderful
Mr. Wonderful (musical)
Mr. Wonderful is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Will Glickman, and music and lyrics by Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener, and George David Weiss....
and Catch a Star. He joined ASCAP in 1956, his other popular-song compositions include "Without You I'm Nothing", "Raining, It's Raining", "Too Close for Comfort" and "The Story of Alice" which was recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio. His play Before You Go began on Broadway and has been produced in regional theaters in the United Kingdom, Paris, Sweden, and Mexico City. His musical play, "I Don't Live There Anymore", written with composer Gerard Kenny
Gerard Kenny
Gerard Kenny is a popular music singer-songwriter.-Career:Kenny formed his first band whilst in high school and between then, and the early 1970s, he toured the club circuit. In 1968 he landed his first recording contract with Warner Bros...
, received its American premiere at the 1993 Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
in Charleston, SC.
Actor
His acting career began in a nightclub revue in New York at the Upstairs at the Downstairs. His first theater job was in Stop The World on Broadway. Next, in 1964 he played Cornelius in Hello, Dolly!, first with Carol Channing, then Ginger Rogers. His film work includes Mr Reckler in the 1981 TV Movie Thin Ice starring Kate Jackson, as well as Walking and Talking written and directed by his daughter, screenwriter-director Nicole HolofcenerNicole Holofcener
Nicole Holofcener is an American film and television director. She has directed four feature films, most recently Please Give.-Career:...
.
Writing
He also pursues a literary career. In 1960, he compiled and edited A Practical Dictionary of Rhymes for Crown Publishers. He wrote Day of Change in 1976. Britishisms, his British-English dictionary was first published in 1981.Sculptor
Gibbes Museum of Art
The Gibbes Museum of Art is an art museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the museum moved into a new Beaux Arts building at 135 Meeting Street in 1905...
in Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
. It was followed by many shows, awards and commissions. During his exhibition at AT&T's Education Center in Princeton, New Jersey, Lawrence produced The Box, a piece which was added to their collection.
In 1985 at the Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
, Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
unveiled Holofcener's portrait, "Faces of Olivier", and ten years later to the day on Bond Street
Bond Street
Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London that runs north-south through Mayfair between Oxford Street and Piccadilly. It has been a fashionable shopping street since the 18th century and is currently the home of many high price fashion shops...
in London, Princess Margaret unveiled his portraits of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
and Franklin Roosevelt. "Allies" has fast become one of London's tourist attractions. Commissions include Queen Victoria for the Isle of Wight's Museum of Island History and Coburg, Germany, as well as a life-size bronze of Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
at Bordentown, New Jersey
Bordentown, New Jersey
Bordentown City is in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 3,924. Bordentown is located at the confluence of the Delaware River, Blacks Creek and Crosswicks Creek...
.
Other life-size portraits of Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...
, William Tyndale
William Tyndale
William Tyndale was an English scholar and translator who became a leading figure in Protestant reformism towards the end of his life. He was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus, who made the Greek New Testament available in Europe, and by Martin Luther...
and William Penn
William Penn
William Penn was an English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He was an early champion of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful...
are in Bristol, England. In 1998, Holofcener embarked on a major series celebrating the contributions made by 20th Century icons, among them Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, John F Kennedy, Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
, Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
, Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
, the Three Tenors and John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
.