These Foolish Things

The celebrated film director Mike Nichols remarked, “We shall never see John Lahr’s likes again. . . . He stands alone not only in The New Yorker but in theater criticism.” Son of the famed comedian Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, John Lahr has led a life that reads like a veritable who’s who of the stage and screen, with guest appearances by Harold Pinter, Richard Avedon, Barry Humphries, Alan Bennett, and Tony Kushner, among others. In These Foolish Things, the acclaimed author and seminal drama critic of The New Yorker for more than twenty years captures the events and people who have transformed his life.From a picture frame with a faded engraving to a birthday card with the outline of a loving hand, Lahr assembles a droll and insightful mosaic of chapters inspired by the objects that still connect him to his past. He recalls his boyhood growing up in a show business family; his apprenticeship in the 1960s underground press; his turn as an award-winning co-author of Elaine Stritch at Liberty; and his fabulous career at The New Yorker, where he published nearly a million words. Called “one of the greatest biographers writing today” (Observer), Lahr gives a penetrating account of his determination to bring the stories of Joe Orton, Dame Edna Everage, Bill Hicks, Elaine Stritch, and Tennessee Williams into print.Lahr also reflects on the influences, for better and for worse, of his relationships with a saturnine father and narcissistic mother, his enduring affection for his early caretaker Georgie, and his romance with the love of his life, his wife, Connie Booth. A moving and delightfully entertaining capstone to an amazing career, These Foolish Things is an unconventional self-portrait from the premier American theater critic of his time.