Lee Israel was a friend of mine. A cantankerous drunken senior-citizen lesbian friend of mine, but a friend nonetheless. We worked together for seven years, until she was unceremoniously removed from the premises in 2004. At some point after that, my great cartographer friend Jim and I started sporadically meeting Lee for dinner and drinks. We’d go to Walker’s in Tribeca, long a favorite spot of me and the Mapman. Lee would sometimes mention her regular hangout, Julius’, one of the oldest gay bars in New York. Eventually we said that since she’d always come to our place, we would finally try out hers. The drinks were dirt cheap and the burgers and wings were pretty good, so Julius’ became the go-to spot for our get-togethers in the past couple of years.
On December 3, Facebook told me it was Lee’s birthday. I wrote a greeting there, but, as she was not the world’s most avid user of social media, I also emailed her.
I didn’t hear back from her, which was odd: She did love to email—being so damn smart and funny and such a talented writer, she really excelled at it—and we’d had quite the correspondence over the years: the Yankees, movies, my unrequited crush on the daughter of a somewhat prominent actor/director who was “attached” to a film version of one of Lee’s books, etc. (Was a movie really going to happen? She was known to make up stories. Yet, whenever I’d doubted one of her claims to fame in the past, they’d always proved true.) I emailed again a week later and when I still got no response, I gave her a call.
Lee picked up. Well, she was alive, at least. But she did sound “out of it.” Lee took down my number (about the 800th time I’d given it to her) and promised she’d call me back.
The call never came. On Saturday, December 20, I was going into Manhattan to see a friend’s band. On my way, I decided to drop by Julius’. I didn’t really expect Lee to be there, but maybe one of her friends would know something. Jim and I had met a handful of them during our visits: drunken Chris and her older friend Olivera the Serb; Tom who is a resolute advocate for noise control; Jurek the party boy from overseas who occasionally stayed at Lee’s place, and most frequently, Ray, who once played LBJ in a grammar-school production. We didn’t meet Ray right away because at the time of our first visit, Lee was furious at him for one reason or another, and they were not speaking. In fairness to Ray, Lee could be very quick to anger, and would certainly hold a grudge. But soon enough we were chatting with Ray, which was a lot of fun when he wasn’t too smashed, and less so when he was.
So on that Saturday night I peeked in the windows at Julius’. No sign of Lee, but it looked like Ray was seated at the bar. For the first time, I went into Julius’ by myself, and tapped Ray on the shoulder.
He was pretty hammered.
After I finally got him to understand who I was, I asked Ray if he’d seen or heard from Lee in the past week or two. He had not. I asked him to please call her: “Well why don’t YOU?!?” “Um, I did, Ray, that’s why I’m asking you to try.” He said he would. Then he stared at me a little.
“You have a beautiful face.”
I thanked Ray, and high-tailed it out of there.
I called Lee on the 24th and left a message. (In earlier years, she’d be prepping to volunteer with God’s Love We Deliver on Christmas.) I sent an email on the 31st.
On January 2, I went to Lee’s Upper West Side apartment building. I’d never been there, but there is a lot of information that is easy to find on the Internet. It was a much nicer building than you might expect for an occasionally destitute writer; rent control is a beautiful thing. The doorman said Lee was in the hospital, had been for a while, but he didn’t know which one.
I called the Mapman; he called up a few of the closest hospitals, with no luck. When I got home I emailed Lee’s oft-mentioned dear friend David, an octogenarian producer in L.A. (Jim and I had been CC’d on a few emails to him.)
When I awoke the next morning, there was an email from David waiting for me with the sad news: Lee had passed away on December 24.
She hadn’t been well the past couple of years—cancer—but I was still surprised. She seemed pretty sturdy when Jim and I had last met up with her in late October. The news rattled me. I called Jim, and then I called David, as he had encouraged me to do. I’m really glad I did. There weren’t too many of us who “got” Lee and we have to stick together.
Until I had spoken with David, I was hesitant to mention Lee’s death on Facebook; a tiny part of me thought it might be a grand hoax. She really did love to trick people.
However, her death does appear to be legit. David has handled most matters. Her elderly cat had been put down, but there was a younger one who needed a home. In the short term, David was going to pay for a pricey pet hotel; I said I’d help spread the word. (It now seems that a good home has been found.) He had contacted the New York Times, saying that an obituary was warranted. When they expressed interest, David reached out to me for some details; Jim and I did the best we could.
Today, an obituary for Lee appeared in the New York Times. She would be very pleased about that. There are some negative comments in the obit and she probably would not have been totally thrilled with those. (Would you?) As I had learned from personal experience, Lee could dish it out but couldn’t always take it.
As soon as I got the news about Lee, I started re-reading the many emails she’d sent me. Unfortunately, the many she sent to my old work address are long gone, and likewise any she had sent to my home address prior to 2005. But still, I’ve got a bunch of them. I thought I’d share some here, to add to the oeuvre of Israel-isms that are out in the ether, and maybe I can fill out the image of her that’s in some people’s minds, just a little bit. I’ll annotate as needed; the first refers to Lee’s friend/foe/neighbor/boss Renee Glaser, a frail but feisty character….
8/7/05 6:33 pm
Jack — Absolutely. Would love to see you and MAPS. If you are going to the movies, I would suggest March of the Penguins. It is astonishing, and you don’t have to love zoo animals. I’ve heard through the grapevine that something happened to Renee. But I’m not sure; might just be a rumor. And I’m certain she told me at some point that she’d given up waterskiing..
6:50 pm
I got my stories all mixed up. It wasn’t Renee who had the accident waterskiing. But I did hear, from an unimpeachable, that she ruptured an eardrum in a synchronized-swimming gala at the 92nd Street Y. Hope she’s made a complete recovery
8/19/05
Nora Ephron has my memoir.(Ee-ay ey-ay oh) She’s in it. The time she sent two detectives to my house?
Long story. But we will finally determine whether or not she has a sense of humor.
8/21/05
Jack, I told you Hoffman had been chosen [to play Truman Capote; a friend of hers was planning to make a different Capote film, and I had suggested that Philip Seymour Hoffman would be great as the lead]. But not by the version with which I had some connection, but the other one. How are you? Are we ever going to get together? Are you still a hot Scholastic editor? The Yankess just lost again. The team includes no Jews that come to mind. Lee
8/28/05 2:30 pm
Jack — Expected check did not arrive. I can’t do tomorrow or Tuesday. Can we think about the middle of the month? Sorry. I’m disappointed. Yankees just got three on a run by Giambi. You probably think I am a baseball nut. Not so. But I used to be when I was a Brooklyn early teen during the reign of the Boys of Summer. We’d get a day off every time Preacher Roe pitched a strike. Roe? Row? [Note: Elwin Charles “Preacher” Roe pitched in 12 major-league seasons, including 1948–54 for the Brooklyn Dodgers.]
2:43 pm
Jeeter just hit an aptly placed single. Only to tell you: I just figured out why you have two references from me viz baseball. I am not multitasked, but I can watch baseball and e-mail at the same time. I don’t know what would happen if I tried simultaneously chewing gum.
2:51 pm
On the subject of multitasking and baseball. Jeeter can blow bubbles and round the bases at the same time. Don’t play in the mud. Nobody is that dextrous.
8/31/05
I was just about to write. Came to me: I said Rain Delay; you said Tom DeLay. And you know about Keir Dullea, actor of twenty years ago? Worked with Noel Coward who was asked about him. Coward replied, “Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow!” (Turned out to be true.)
9/26/05
Saw renee today. she was walking north: i was hiding behind a mail box.
Nora Ephron said no. that was a first.
11/22/05
I was told by various and sundry. [re: a mention of Lee in Vanity Fair about her Estee Lauder biography] Alas, the quote attributed to my book contained what some puritans would consider a grammatical error. Hope you are fine. Joy through Allah
1/10/06
Oh, Jack. I just wrote such a funny thing to you about Philip Seymour being picked on some award show as best actor of the year.. and that he will probably win the big shiny one … And it all disappeared I pushed the wrong key or something .. … what else did I say? That people are saying. what a stretch … what a stroke (no disrespect, Ariel).. who would have thought this man, Philip Seymour, could have been such a genius Truman? .. You thought and me too. I think about my poor, talented friend who has the other Capote movie ready to go … If someone were to become the talk of the town based on some other property that is not my Tallulah … starring Angelina Jolie … I would put a pistol to my head. Well, maybe not a pistol.
How are you?
2/27/06
Hello. You’ll be amused to hear that I had lunch at Michael’s, the new meet and greet place, on Valentine’s Day, with David, my producer, and Dominick Dunne, who wanted to meet me. He had just done a column for Vanity Fair about Dorothy Kilgallen’s murder. Loved my book. Loved me. Called me his “new best friend.” Joan Rivers was there. Looking like a Jewish Kabuki, she blew an air kiss to me. Ever been air-kissed by a Jewish Kabuki? Dominick’s column will run in the next Vanity Fair.
He based the whole thing on my book. But it was before we met and he may not have credited. No matter. (Matter!) The cachet of the magazine will be good for possible movie rights.
Are you happy and healthy? I found a puppy. Do you want him? (Just kidding. It was a dingo … what killed my baby.) your friend who misses you
4/11/06 4:01 pm
apb apb
Baby-eating dingo loose in Central Park — thought to be looking for his litter-mate, Lon the Coyote.
10:40 pm
I spent the day looking over the Internet, reading interviews with me that were completely fabricated. Like Sinatra once said … no comparison … I don’t mind lies, but I hate being made to look like a horse’s ass.
How is your television idea developing? Every time I engage in one of these exchanges — not often –I feel like what’s her name in Sex and the City …It’s hard to think of Sarah Jessica having lusty sex, because she is a twig and could weigh in at Dachau and not a soul would notice … except for the expensive shoes.
11/19/06
Did you ever finish the TV series on which you were collaborating? Sorry I missed your party for the moribund gymnasium. I had another bash that night.
Just lost a major freelance copyediting client and my landlord’s getting nervous. If something happens to catch your ear, think of me.
Kilgallen just got optioned again. One of these days, it will make a good film.
Hope you’re well and getting laid
It’s wonderful she had a friend like you to keep tabs on her and appreciate her finer points. There are probably a lot of Lees in this world who lose contact with people and end up completely alone. Anyway, nice piece – both poignant and (“you have a beautiful face”) a little funny too. 😉
Lee Israel’s ego was so fragile that whenever anyone asked her if she saved the resource material from her 1970s research for her Dorothy Kilgallen book, she expressed fear that another writer would steal her reputation for delivering the major scoop on Kilgallen. She asked for money just so someone could look at her old stuff. I can assure everyone she saved a lot of it, though not all.
She never could follow the reasoning that no matter who else publishes a book or online article on the Kilgallen mystery, she always will get credit for paving the way.
If Lee hadn’t written her Kilgallen book in the 1970s, nobody else would have. Dorothy’s surviving sister Eleanor remained mentally alert until she died at age 95 a very few days before Lee died. You can Google that. Eleanor reminisced about the young and unknown actor Warren Beatty for a biographer who contacted her a few years ago, but she always refused to discuss her sister.
Whether Eleanor Kilgallen ever read Lee’s book can never be known. We do know that had Lee done nothing for Dorothy’s memory, nobody else could have. Lee identified Ron Pataky and the other important sources. How could someone have identified them years later after the 1985 death of Dorothy’s close friend Bob Bach? He and his wife were the ones who told Lee who Ron Pataky was.
Lee became very friendly with Hollywood producer David Yarnell in 2000 when he optioned her book for television or movie treatment. Filming never began, but David and his wife — I try to avoid generalizing about alleged Hollywood big -shots though I know New Yorkers hate them — remained close with Lee until the end. Despite their closeness, Lee’s fragile ego kept prompting her to fear that another Hollywood producer would steal her Kilgallen property without giving her any money. David consoled her as best he could.
I’m in the process of helping Mark Shaw, author of more than twenty books, with a book that will be the second book that is solely about Dorothy. Lee’s always will be the first and foremost.
Experience tells me that typing, typing, typing can be a seductive trap that distracts the non – fiction author and his assistant from working on digital editing via Final Cut Pro X. The old audiocassettes deteriorate, you know. Typing, typing, typing hardly saves their contents for posterity. Not only must you digitize, but you must edit. Adding still photos of the speakers helps enormously. Lee Israel used the old cassette machines in the 1970s, so in recent years she knew the sad reality of deterioration.
Anyway, my typing, typing, typing should draw to a conclusion here as I say that Lee can rest in a place where none of her fellow departed spirits can take away her achievement. Maybe Dorothy can reach her hand out to Lee and slap her five.
And I forgave Lee long ago for the “mean” stuff she allegedly did to Noel Coward. I found it funny. I enjoyed her book Can You Ever Forgive Me?… Some of her “victims” were much more eccentric than she was. They were paying all that money so Mr. Coward could say something witty he never had said before. He had been dead since 1973. These people should have checked out carefully the merchandise they bought before they bought it.
Mr. Silbert, you evidently worked with Lee at a scholastic magazine for kids. I hope she brought laughter there. Whatever she did wrong there in 2003 was and is forgivable. As you know, the kids who read your magazine don’t use the audiocassette format no matter how smart they are. So I must return to my digitizing and editing.
Jack, please write more on this. My glancing contact with Lee Israel during my equally glancing career at Scholastic suggested that she contained these kinds of depths (or heights), and I would be delighted to read more.
A fascinating lady, and you are her perfect Boswell.
Kathryn, thank you so much for providing additional insight and perspective into Lee and Ms. Kilgallen, it is greatly appreciated. Michael, I’m working my way through my correspondence with Lee, and there is much lively stuff to come!
Regarding this message that Lee sent on April 11, 2006 at 10:40 p.m.:
** I spent the day looking over the Internet, reading interviews with me that were completely fabricated. **
Lee could be referring to quotes that conspiracy people started attributing to her in 2005, and several web sites have circulated them ever since. In one quote, Lee allegedly said Ron Pataky had attended a training school for assassins in Central America approximately ten years before his first meeting with Dorothy Kilgallen.
Lee knew the conspiracy people were doing that to her, whether or not she was referring to their gaffes in that particular 2006 email message to Mr. Silbert. She occasionally expressed distress to me about the misquoting, but her pride in her knowledge of Tallulah Bankhead allayed that distress.
Does anyone here know which of Lee’s friends, if any, made an attempt to claim her belongings during the week that passed between her death and the day her landlord had the right to confiscate her belongings?
Her book Can You Ever Forgive Me?… says her relationship with her brother Edward Israel was nonexistent.
If a friend didn’t visit her 2nd-floor unit to get her stuff, including her Kilgallen material, then I suspect the landlord threw it out. That same landlord had put up with Lee’s lateness in paying rent — put up with it occasionally for many years.
You get a hint of that bad relationship in the last email Mr. Silbert has pasted here: the one dated November 19, 2006. Lee’s words include “Just lost a major freelance copyediting client and my landlord’s getting nervous.”
marvelously fascinating.