Lee Israel
Movie Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
3.5 stars out of 5 Reviews by their very nature are not objective, and this one is extra tricky for me, as not only was I friends with Lee Israel for some 17 years, but I also did a little consulting on an earlier iteration of this movie. So you could say that I attended […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 9 (July – Aug. 2012)
This Friday, the movie we’ve all been waiting 3.5 years for, Can You Ever Forgive Me? based on the memoir by Lee Israel, will finally be released. Lee herself had been waiting even longer, and died before the contractual t’s were dotted and eyes were crossed as it were. But back in the 2012, she […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 8 (June 2012)
Today would have been Lee’s 78th birthday. Let’s celebrate with another entertaining batch of her correspondence, this time involving baseball, another mention of her movie deal, and some fun at the expense of (now recently dead) gossip columnist Liz Smith. We pick up with an update on the doctoral dissertation for which I’d recommended Lee […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 7 (May 2012)
I try to post these more often than, you know, every 11 months, but medical and then technological difficulties kept me away from my stash of electronic correspondence with Lee Israel. Since we were last here, Melissa McCarthy was spotted in New York, dressed as Lee, as filming finally began on Can You Ever Forgive […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 6 (Apr. 2012)
Last week we learned that the movie based on Lee’s memoir is, in fact, still very much alive! (Unlike Lee herself.) Nicole Holofcener’s script will still be used, but she is no longer directing — the reins have been turned over to Marielle Heller, whose debut effort, 2015’s Diary of a Teenage Girl, impressed me. […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 5 (Mar. 2011 – Mar. 2012)
Today would’ve been Lee Israel’s birthday, and we are soon approaching the anniversary of her death. Like Elvis, Michael Jackson, Andy Kaufman, Tupac, etc., Lee’s had quite the posthumous year. To recap: Times obituary, announcement of a movie based on her book starring reigning Oscar-winner Julianne Moore to be written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 4 (2010)
Having obtained a newly uncovered photo of Lee as a little girl (with her brother Edward), I thought it was high time to return to her collected e-mails. Since our last installment, we learned that the extremely funny, talented, and charming Chris O’Dowd has joined the cast with the already announced, amazingly wonderful Julianne Moore in […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 3 (2009)
With baseball season underway, it seems like a good time to return to the collected e-mails of Lee Israel, as this batch heavily features her interest in our national pastime. Lee routinely watched Yankees games on TV even if, as you’ll see, she wasn’t particularly root-root-rooting for the home team. The previous year, with the […]
The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 2 (2007–08)
When last we were here, in my collection of emails from Lee Israel, we learned that Lee was working on a memoir, and also that money was tight, so she was looking for copy-editing assignments. We pick things up on… 4/20/07 eager to read your piece. cannot open it. I’ll pursue later. Did you know […]
Jack Silbert, curator