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
Jack Silbert, curator