Presented by the University Lecture Committee. This event is free to attend.
In a cultural landscape filled with endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz stands out as one of our most insightful social commentators. Her essays and interviews offer acerbic views on current events and the media, as well as a catalogue of pet peeves that includes tourists, baggage-claim areas, aftershave lotion, adults who roller skate, children who speak French, and anyone who is unduly tan. The New York Times Book Review has called Lebowitz an “important humorist in the classic tradition.” A purveyor of urban cool, she is a cultural satirist often described as the heir to Dorothy Parker.
Lebowitz’s wit is famously sharp. On special-interest groups, she has remarked, “Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.” On frankness, she observes, “Spilling your guts is exactly as charming as it sounds.” On herself, she quips, “Success didn’t spoil me, I’ve always been insufferable.” This is Lebowitz off the cuff; her writing—pointed, taut, and economical—is equally forthright, irascible, and unapologetically opinionated.
Before her literary success, Lebowitz worked a variety of odd jobs, including taxi driving, belt peddling, and apartment cleaning, “with a small specialty in Venetian blinds.” She was eventually hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for Interview, followed by a stint at Mademoiselle. Her first book, Metropolitan Life, a collection of essays, was a bestseller, as was her second collection, Social Studies. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, and wisecracking, her prose is wickedly entertaining.
Her two books are collected in The Fran Lebowitz Reader, which includes a new preface by the author. The volume has been published in nine languages, including French, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, and in 2021 it was published for the first time in the United Kingdom, where it became a bestseller. Lebowitz is also the author of the children’s book Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas.
Between 2001 and 2007, Lebowitz had a recurring role as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order. She also appeared in Martin Scorsese’s film The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). A natural raconteur, she has long been a regular guest on talk shows hosted by Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, and Bill Maher. In an interview with The Paris Review, she said, “I’m not a nervous person. I’m not afraid to be on TV. I’m only afraid when I write. When I’m at my desk I feel like most people would feel if they went on TV.”
Lebowitz has appeared in numerous documentary films, including the American Experience series on New York City, Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016), Regarding Susan Sontag (2014), and Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (1990). In 2010, Martin Scorsese directed a documentary about her for HBO titled Public Speaking. A limited documentary series, Pretend It’s a City, also directed by Scorsese, premiered on Netflix in 2021 and was nominated for an Emmy that year in the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series category. In 2021, Lebowitz received the Forte dei Marmi Festival della Satira Lifetime Achievement Award and was named a Foreign Press Honorary Awardee by the Foreign Press Correspondents Association & Club USA.
Lebowitz was inducted into Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 2008 and remains a style icon. She lives in New York City, as she does not believe she would be allowed to live anywhere else.
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