Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is Fran Lebowitz's background and family history?
Welcome to Rosebud. This is my podcast with me, Giles Branruth, produced by my friend Harriet Jane. And we're very lucky. We have literally millions of downloads. We've become a huge podcast worldwide. There are millions of you out there. So I'd like you all to join with me now as I say what I say every week as we begin another episode. Are you ready? On the count of three. Three, two, one.
Cue the music. Welcome to Rosebud. Yes, it's a Friday, if you're listening in real time. And it's me, Giles Brandreth, in a state of some excitement because today I'm talking to you from New York City. It's very exciting. We've done a few interviews in New York, and this is a very special one.
And my special guest today is someone who, well, really is the sensibility of New York, is the voice of New York. In fact, the New York Times called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker. As some of you may know, I'm the president of the Oscar Wilde Society, and at a recent gathering of Oscar Wilde enthusiasts, we fell to talking about who might be considered a contemporary Oscar Wilde.
And we bandied a few names around.
Chapter 2: How did Fran Lebowitz's childhood influence her career?
Older people mentioned the great American James Baldwin, who had an incredible way with words. And I know our guest today, well, she was an admirer of James Baldwin. Somebody mentioned Stephen Fry. Well, he's certainly remarkable. He's already been a guest on Rosebud. Well, today's guest is a woman. She's a New Yorker. She's a phenomenon. She is Fran Leibovitz. She's a cultural critic.
She's a public speaker. She's an author today with Writer's Block, famous for her books, Metropolitan Life, Social Studies, The Fran Lebowitz Reader. And then she really stopped writing. She was a journalist. She worked, for example, on Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. I don't know that she got on that well with Andy Warhol.
You'll discover as you listen to our conversation with one of the great talkers of our time. I feel very privileged. I saw the Martin Scorsese documentary series about her and I thought, this is a woman I want to meet. And now I am.
Chapter 3: What unique experiences shaped Fran's views on writing and creativity?
And now you are too. This is an intimate conversation with a remarkable individual. with a brilliant mind and a wonderful way with words. Welcome to Rosebud with Fran Lebowitz. Cue the music. Fran, I'm so excited because this is our very first podcast in the United States of America, and I wanted you to be our very first guest for a reason I'll reveal to you at the end of our conversation.
You are not familiar with the world of podcasting, are you? Because you don't have Wi-Fi, you don't have internet, you may not even ever have listened to a podcast, though I know you've appeared on a few.
Yes.
I've appeared on millions. I've listened or seen zero. Is there a reason for this? Yeah, I don't look at anything about myself. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be a newspaper. It could be a magazine.
It's about yourself. But are you against Wi-Fi because you don't have a mobile cell phone and things?
No, I'm not against it. I'm just not interested in it.
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Chapter 4: What was Fran's relationship with Andy Warhol like?
It's not been for you. You know, when they first invented the kind of computer you have in your house, it was called a word processor. So it was before the internet. And a friend of mine who's a screenwriter got one, and she said, this thing is fantastic. You have to come look at it.
So I went to her apartment, I looked at it, and I thought, this is just a very fast kind of typewriter, which is all it was then. There was way before the internet. And I don't need this because A, I don't know how to type. And B, I write so slowly, I could write my own blood without hurting myself. So I didn't get it. You know, then eventually it was the internet.
Now, obviously I didn't know the whole world would go into this machine. But by the time it did, I was like so removed from it. I just don't care about it.
Well, I care very much that you're here, and I'm very thrilled that you're here. And I'm going to ask you our first question. Our first question is always the same. I'm going to give you your name. I hope I've got this right. Frances Ann Leibovitz?
Chapter 5: How did Fran Lebowitz transition from writing to public speaking?
Correct. You still have a friend I know who calls you Francie.
I do, because I have my oldest friend, not by age, but by length of friendship. We grew up together, so we're friends since we were four. She still calls me Francie, which there's no one alive who even knows who that is.
But you are Fran. And how long have you been Fran?
I know when I was about, I don't remember, when I was about 12 or 13, I said, this is too childish, Francie. Call me Fran. Fran.
Fran. Born on October the 27th, 1950?
Correct.
Good. I want to ask you, Fran, what is your very first memory in your head, the one that is in your head, the memory, not from a photograph, from your mind's eye?
Well, like everyone who could testify to this is dead now. But my mother was from Connecticut, and we used to go visit her parents all the time. My mother had a younger sister, also dead. And when we went to my grandmother's house, the bigger bedroom was my aunt's bedroom because she was five years younger than my mother. She had lived there longer.
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Chapter 6: What role does Fran's extensive book collection play in her life?
my mother was already in school you know at school so i always said i remember being like young enough to be in a crib which is an infant being put in the middle of that bed while my father and my uncle put my crib together and i described it and everyone said you could not remember this uh but i described it and everyone said well that was the crib so i don't know in my mind uh that's my first memory and who are these parents of yours
My mother's name was Ruth. Her maiden name was Splaver. Okay, you've never heard this name. And you've never heard it because her grandfather, my great-grandfather, when he came to this country from Russia at the very beginning of the 20th century before the revolution, He didn't speak English. When he got here, they asked him what was his profession.
Because he thought you get to the United States, they give you a job. And so he said in whatever dialect they spoke, splover, which meant woodcutter.
Mm-hmm.
So they wrote down Splaver. I mean, the people who were in Ellis Island were mostly like, you know, like Irish, first of all. And so everyone in the world named Splaver is related to me. What his last name really was, was probably nothing because Jews in Russia didn't really have last names. They didn't have birth certificates. They were not citizens. And so that became their last name.
And did he do well for himself?
Well, he wasn't killed in a pogrom. I mean, I have to tell you that, you know, this idea that
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Chapter 7: What are Fran Lebowitz's thoughts on marriage and relationships?
You know, immigrants in that era where it was a huge immigration of Eastern European Jews, of Irish, of Italians, but they came for different reasons. The Jews didn't come here to get rich. They came here to not get killed, okay? That's a very big motivation. They were escaping. You know, the czar was incredible, you know. So they, I mean, he deserted the army.
And so basically his job was to clean the horses. That was his job. And he ran away. You know, he escaped. And my grandfather, his son, came here. He didn't know how old he was. He didn't know when his birthday was. So my mother and her sister made up a birthday for him. He said he remembered that soon after he got here, he had his bar mitzvah. So they knew he was 13 soon after he got here.
And he said it was summertime. So my grandfather's birthday was always celebrated August 15th in the summer, even though we have no idea when that was his birthday. He went right to work at 12 years old.
Chapter 8: How does Fran reflect on her life experiences and regrets?
My grandfather never went to school. Jews weren't allowed to go to school in Russia. And he went right to work. And yet he was the only relative of mine who loved to read. I don't know where he learned to speak English, but everyone when I was a child and reading all the time, they would say, she's just like Phil. Look, she's just like Phil reading all the time. This was somewhat frowned upon.
And so he had a lot of different jobs. By the time I was born, he and my grandmother owned a restaurant in Derby, Connecticut, which was a mill town then. And my father's family, my grandmother was Hungarian, and my grandfather was Czech. And they were Libovits. They were Libovits, although we did find out.
So, of course, my father had four siblings, and every one of them spelled their last name differently.
Mm-hmm.
Because my grandmother, when she had these children, she had them with a midwife. She didn't go to the hospital. And the midwife wrote down a different spelling. And of course, these guys, the three, you know, the men, they just kept these spellings. They never said... Look, we're brothers. My father was in business with one of his brothers. They spelled their name differently.
And what was your father's name? Harold. Harold. So how did Harold and Ruth meet, and what were they like together?
They met because my father... My father's family moved from Brooklyn to Morristown, New Jersey, where I was born. And my mother's family had lived there at one time. They weren't living there at that time. But my mother went to college near there. My father had a friend who was going out with my mother's college roommate or something. And that's how they met. And what were they like as a couple?
My mother told me, I don't know when this was, not that long ago, but which I mean like 20 years ago, I married your father because he was so handsome. My father was extremely handsome. And I thought first, that is an idiotic reason to marry someone. Then I realized my mother was 21 when she got married.
That's exactly what a 21-year-old would do, which is why, if anyone's listening, do not get married at 21.
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