Lawrence Lipton
{{short description|American journalist (1898–1975)}}
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{{Infobox person
| name = Lawrence Lipton
| image = Lawrence Lipton and DUHAB.jpg
| caption = Lipton and his "robot", 1965
| birth_date = {{birth year|1898}}
| birth_place = Łódź, Poland
| death_date = {{death date and given age|mf=yes|1975|07|09|77}}
| death_place = Los Angeles, California
| spouse = {{ubl|
- Dorothy Omansky (divorced)
- Betty Weinberg (divorced)
- Craig Rice (divorced)
- Nettie Brooks (m. 1948)}}
| children = James Lipton
}}
Lawrence Lipton (1898 – July 9, 1975) was a Polish-born Jewish American journalist, writer, and Beat poet, as well as the father of James Lipton.{{cite web|url=http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/index.html|title=LAWRENCE LIPTON|last=Lipton|first=Nettie|year=1983|publisher=University of Southern California|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524224250/http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/index.html|archivedate=May 24, 2008|accessdate=October 23, 2007}} He is also known for coining the term Disneyfication in 1959.
Early life
Lipton was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1898,{{Cite book |last=Maynard |first=John Arthur |url=https://archive.org/details/venicewestbeatge00mayn/page/230/mode/2up |title=Venice West |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=1991 |pages=230 |isbn=978-0-8135-1653-0 |access-date=August 1, 2024}} the son of Rose and Abraham Lipschitz.{{Cite news |last=Bernstein |first=Adam |date=March 3, 2020 |title=James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio, dies at 93 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-lipton-host-of-inside-the-actors-studio-dies-at-93/2020/03/02/ba014f06-5cb0-11ea-b014-4fafa866bb81_story.html |access-date=August 1, 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post |issn=0190-8286 |oclc=1330888409}}{{WaPoCheckDates}} He immigrated to the United States in 1903 and settled in Chicago, Illinois.
Career
Lipton began his career as a graphic artist and won an award for his illustration of a version of the Haggadah, the Passover seder liturgical text. He also worked as a journalist, writing for the Jewish Daily Forward and working for a movie theater as a publicity director.
During the 1920s, he associated with Chicago writers Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, Harriet Monroe, Ben Hecht, and Carl Sandburg. Lipton later wrote for Atlantic Monthly, The Quarterly Review of Literature, and the Chicago Review. His other novels include Brother, The Laugh Is Bitter and In Secret Battle, as well as a poetry book, Rainbow at Midnight. His book The Holy Barbarians (1959) linked Lipton to the Beats as well as coined the term Disneyfication.{{Cite book |last=Wills |first=John |title=Disney Culture |date=2017 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |series=Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |chapter=The World According to Disney}} He appeared in The Hypnotic Eye (1960) as "King of the Beatniks".
In the episode "Swan Song" on the show Gilmore Girls, Rory is showing Jess her copy of The Holy Barbarians by Lipton, and says that he is "the father of the guy that does those Actors Studio interviews on TV", to which Jess responds "It's weird that a beatniky guy would have a conservative son like that."
The Holy Barbarians was also used as a band name for Holy Barbarians, a short-lived garage rock band from Liverpool, England, active from 1995 to 1997.
Personal life
Lipton's first wife was Dorothy Omansky. He next married Betty Weinberg, a teacher; their son was Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton. He was later married to author Craig Rice and Nettie Esther Brooks (from 1948 to 1975).
Lipton died in Los Angeles on July 9, 1975, at the age of 77.{{Cite news |date=July 11, 1975 |title=Writer Dies |url=https://archive.org/details/benton-harbor-herald-palladium-1975-07-11/page/n23/mode/2up |access-date=August 1, 2024 |work=Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium |agency=Associated Press}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20071127045018/http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/inventory.html Lawrence Lipton Papers Inventory]
- [http://www.americanethnography.com/article.php?id=126 American Ethnography Quasimonthly | Excerpt from The Holy Barbarians]
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Category:Journalists from Chicago
Category:20th-century American journalists
Category:Polish emigrants to the United States
Category:American male journalists
Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:Jewish American poets
Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:20th-century American poets