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{{Short description|American writer (born 1951)}}
{{Advertisement|Date=November 2010}}
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{{Infobox writer {{Infobox writer
| caption = | caption =
| image = FranzLidz5&25&2009.jpg | image = FranzLidz5&25&2009.jpg
| birthname = Franz (Stephen) Ira Lidz | birth_name = Franz Ira Lidz
| birthdate = {{Birth date and age|1951|9|24}} | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1951|9|24}}
| birthplace = ], ] | birth_place = ], U.S.
| notableworks = ''Unstrung Heroes (1991)''<br />''Ghosty Men (2003)''<br />''Fairway To Hell (2008)''
| notableworks =
⚫ | spouse = Maggie Lidz (1976–present)
''Unstrung Heroes (1991)''
⚫ | children = Gogo, Daisy
⚫ | occupation = {{flatlist|
* ]
* memoirist
* American professional basketball executive
⚫ }}
| alma_mater = ]
}}


'''Franz Lidz''' (born September 24, 1951) is an American writer, journalist and pro basketball executive.
''Ghosty Men (2003)''


A '']'' archaeology, science and film essayist,<ref>, August 9, 1998 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, September 29, 2002 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, September 23, 2009 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, February 14, 2020 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, April 11, 2020 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, June 18, 2021 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, January 30, 2023 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, December 26, 2023 – ''The New York Times''</ref> who originated the archeological column "Lost and Found".<ref>, May 1, 2023 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, June 6, 2023 – ''The New York Times''</ref> He's a former '']'' senior writer,<ref>, – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated700">, May 6, 2013 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref>'']'' columnist<ref>, December, 2012 - ''Smithsonian''</ref><ref>, November, 2015 - ''Smithsonian''</ref><ref>, May, 2018 - ''Smithsonian''</ref> and a onetime vice president for the ].<ref>, 2016–'17. (Free PDF download). Use search term "''Franz Lidz''"</ref><ref>, ''Smithsonian''</ref> His childhood memoir ''Unstrung Heroes'' was adapted into ] in 1995.<ref name="autogenerated771">, September 21, 1995 – ''Philadelphia Inquirer''</ref><ref name = nyt>, March 4, 1991 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref> - ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, September 3, 1995 – ''The New York Times''</ref>
⚫ ''Fairway To Hell (2008)''
⚫ | spouse = Maggie Lidz (1976-present)
⚫ | children = Gogo, Daisy Daisy
⚫ | occupation = ], memoirist
⚫ }}


⚫ == Early life ==
'''Franz Lidz''' is the author of the childhood memoir ''Unstrung Heroes'' (], 1991), the urban historical ''Ghosty Men: The Strange But True Story of the Collyer Brothers'' (Bloomsbury USA, 2003) and the golf memoir ''Fairway To Hell'' (], 2008). He was a senior writer at '']'' from 1980 to 2007, and a contributing editor at ] ''Portfolio'' (2007–2009). He is a correspondent for '']'', ''S.I.'',<ref></ref> '']'', '']'',<ref></ref> '']'',<ref></ref> '']'' and, since 1983, has written for the '']'' on travel, TV, film and theater.


Lidz was born in ], to Sidney, a Jewish ] who designed the first transistorized portable tape recorder (the Steelman Transitape),<ref>, July 28, 1981 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>{{YouTube|ofQ5X67p8E8|"Steelman Transitape portable reel-to-reel tape recorder"}}, 1959</ref> and Selma, a homemaker. His father gave him early exposure to authors like ], ] and ].<ref>, September 13, 1998 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref name="autogenerated702">, April 8, 1991</ref>
⚫ == Early Life ==


At age nine, still named Stephen before later legally taking Franz as his first name, he moved to the ] suburbs.<ref name="autogenerated77">, April 7, 1991 – ''Philadelphia Inquirer''</ref><ref>, '']'', May 17, 2015</ref><ref>, '']'', May 27, 2015</ref> Lidz attended high school in ]<ref name="autogenerated1"> – May 10, 1982 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated3"> – March 9, 1987 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> and college at ],<ref name="autogenerated181"> March 26, 1984 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> where he was a theater major.<ref name="autogenerated12">, February 9, 1991 – ''Baltimore Sun''</ref>
Born in ],<ref name="amazon1"></ref> Lidz inherited his absurdist sensibility from his father, Sidney, an electronics engineer who designed the first transistorized portable tape recorder (the Steelman Transitape).<ref></ref> Sidney would read to his young son from the works of ], ] and ] and talk through movie screenings.<ref></ref> In second grade, Franz landed a part as a guard in a production of '']''. The following year he delivered ]'s most celebrated soliloquy.<ref name="autogenerated1"></ref>

At age nine, Lidz moved to the ] suburbs. Lidz later went to ]'s high school (Cheltenham, Pa.) and ]'s college (]),<ref name="autogenerated2"></ref> where he was a theater major, touring the East Coast as a singing chain-fetishist biker in the rock musical ''Suzie Nation and the Yellow Peril''.<ref></ref> "Nobody in the play had any idea what this thing was about," he recalled. "It was incomprehensible, and survived on the energy of the actors. I'd get bored reading somebody else's lines, so I started making up my own lines every night."<ref></ref> In a grad school drama class he played ] dressed as a house painter, in coveralls and a spattered cap, inspired by ].<ref name="autogenerated1"/>


== Career == == Career ==


Lidz chose journalism because he wanted a career that wouldn't go out of style.<ref name="autogenerated2"></ref> Lidz started off one of three novice reporters at the weekly ''Sanford Star'', where he wrote a column, covered police and fire beats, amongst other things. He also banked occasional finders' fees from the '']'' for story ideas he had passed along. Later, he left Maine to become a crime reporter and write a column called "Insect Jazz" for an alternative newspaper in ].<ref></ref> Lidz was a novice reporter at the weekly ''Sanford Star'', where he wrote a column and covered police and fire beats. He left Maine to become a crime reporter and write a column called "Insect Jazz" for an alternative newspaper in ].<ref name="autogenerated14">, September 21, 1995 – ''Baltimore Sun''</ref> He later became an editor of ''] Magazine''.<ref>, January 23, 1991 – ''Baltimore Sun''</ref>


In 1980, he joined the staff of '']'',<ref name="autogenerated36">, December 23, 1985 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated89">, May 1, 1989 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated6">, December 10, 1990 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated7">, May 18, 1992 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated65">, November 2, 1998 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> even though he had never read the magazine<ref name="philly1">, May 7, 2008 – ''Philadelphia Inquirer''</ref> and had covered only one sporting event in his life – a ] in ], ].<ref name="autogenerated101">, September 24, 2010 – ''AARP: The Magazine''</ref><ref>, September 22, 2010 – ''The New York Observer''</ref><ref name="autogenerated702"/> Lidz remained on the writing staff for 27 years.<ref name="autogenerated128">, August 15, 2016 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> In 2007 he jumped to the short-lived business monthly ''Conde Nast Portfolio'', and then '']'' magazine<ref>, December 1, 2011 – ]</ref> before landing at ''Smithsonian'' in 2012. His first feature story in ''The New York Times'', on making the second descent of the ], appeared on January 30, 1983.<ref>, January 30, 1983 – ''The New York Times''</ref>
In 1980, he joined the staff of ''],'' even though he had never read the magazine<ref name="philly1"></ref> and had covered only one sporting event in his life.<ref name="autogenerated3"></ref> In August that year, he was made the managing editor of the magazine.
Among his most controversial features are essays on reappraising the ];<ref>, September 20, 2024 – ''The New York Times''</ref> reconsidering ];<ref>, May, 2019 ''Smithsonian''</ref> the effects of climate change on glacial archaeology;<ref>, November 2, 2021 – ''The New York Times''</ref> the Pacific Northwest barred owl cull;<ref>"", April 29, 2024 – ''New York Times''</ref> ];<ref>, July, 2017 - ''Smithsonian''</ref> the 2002 Paris-to-];<ref name="autogenerated1731">, January 21, 2002 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> ] and the ]' line of succession;<ref>, August 2, 2007 – ''Conde Nast Portfolio''</ref><ref>, August 7, 2007 – ''New York Observer''</ref><ref>, July 13, 2007 – ''AOL''</ref><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081013160831/http://gothamist.com/2007/08/03/hows_the_boss_s.php |date=13 October 2008 }}, August 3, 2007 – ''Gothamist''</ref><ref>, December 15, 2008 – Bronx Banter</ref> the hijinks of onetime ] owner ];<ref name="autogenerated38">, April 17, 2000 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref>, April 27, 2014 – '']''</ref><ref name="autogenerated41">, April 30, 2014 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> and a ''S.I.'' cover story with ] player ] in which Collins became the first active male in one of the four major North American team sports to announce he was gay.<ref name="autogenerated18">, April 29, 2013 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated23">, April 29, 2013 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref>, April 29, 2013 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref name="autogenerated67">, April 25, 2023 - ''Sports Illustrated''</ref>


== Notable works ==
Lidz's career highlights include a road trip in search of sports on the equator;<ref></ref> 10 days in dog-sledding school<ref></ref>, and a look inside the mind games at the 1987 world chess championship between ] and ] in ], ]. His essay on ] and the ]' line of succession<ref></ref> was called the "scoop of the year" in the 2008 ] collection '']''.


== Notable Works == === ''Unstrung Heroes'' ===
=== ''Unstrung Heroes, The Book'' ===


''Unstrung Heroes'' is about Lidz's childhood, with his mother, father and his dad's four older brothers.<ref name="autogenerated702"/><ref>, April 20, 2000 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref name="autogenerated213">, September 25, 1995 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref> He had previously written about two of the uncles in'' Sports Illustrated''.<ref name="autogenerated13">, January 25, 1987 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref name="autogenerated19">, December 20, 1982 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref>
''Unstrung Heroes'' chronicles his improbable childhood with Sidney Lidz and his four "impossible" brothers. Sidney was the youngest and relatively sanest. Neighbors indulged him as "Crazy Sid, the mildly crackpot inventor." As for his brothers, Lidz wrote: "My uncles were smelly, screwy, astonishingly scrawny old guys who had abandoned everyday life.... They were happy to be outsiders; they never had to make the same compromises true adults did; they remained innocent and faithful to their own loopy dreams." Lidz's four serenely wacky uncles, the surreal Lidz Brothers, none of whom resemble Auntie Mame in any way, are mostly reminiscent of the inspired, raffish Ritz Brothers in their heyday. There is Uncle Leo, poetaster and a self-proclaimed literary genius who's sent to an asylum after declaring himself the Messiah of ]; Uncle Danny, a paranoid of unparalleled persistence -- during a ballgame at Yankee Stadium, Mickey Mantle hits a foul ball that landed near young Franz and a terrified Danny, scrambles to hide under his seat, convinced that The Mick is trying to assassinate him; Uncle Harry, a veteran of the ],<ref></ref> sincerely committed to the belief that he's the world boxing champion in nine different weight divisions;<ref></ref> and Uncle Arthur, the proud possessor of what is very likely the world's largest collection of discarded shoelaces.<ref name="autogenerated3"/> Leo Lidz may speak for all these flipped Lidz tummlers when he tells his young nephew, "I'm not all I'm cracked up to be."<ref name="baltimoresun1995"></ref> "Looking back now," Lidz wrote, "I suppose there came a moment when I adopted Uncle Harry's style of evasion, which was to ignore reality if it became too painful. This worked for me when we moved in with my stepmother, Shirley: The most effective way to irritate her was to ignore her. It came to me sometime during my 16th year that my uncles' goofy, misdirectional approach to life was the direct opposite of Shirley's corseted suburbanism."


In his review of ''Unstrung Heroes'' in the ''New York Times'', ] called the memoir "unusual and affecting... a melancholy, funny book, a loony tune played with touching disharmony on mournful woodwinds and a noisy klaxon."<ref></ref> In his review of ''Unstrung Heroes'' in ''The New York Times'', ] called the memoir "unusual and affecting&nbsp;... a melancholy, funny book, a loony tune played with touching disharmony on mournful woodwinds and a noisy klaxon".<ref>, March 4, 1991 – ''The New York Times''</ref> ] of the '']'' likened the memoir to a "miniature '']''. There's not a false moment in the book, and that is high praise indeed."<ref>, February 20, 1991 – '']''</ref> '']'' called ''Unstrung Heroes'': "Astonishing, hilarious, angry, poignant, always pointed."<ref>, February, 1991 – ''Random House''</ref>


In 1995, ''Unstrung Heroes'' was adapted into ].<ref name="autogenerated771"/> The setting was switched from ] to ], and the four crazy uncles were reduced to an eccentric odd couple. Asked what he thought of the script, Lidz said: "It's very neatly typed".<ref>, September 22, 1995 – ''Entertainment Weekly''</ref> He was unhappy with the adaptation, but was prevented by his contract from publicly criticizing it. "My initial fear was that ] would turn my uncles into ] and ]", he told '']'' magazine. "I never imagined my life could be turned into ]."<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=]|author=Nancy Jo Sales|title=Undone Heroes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6-QCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA58|date=18 September 1995|publisher=New York Media, LLC|page=58}}</ref> In a later essay for ''The New York Times'', he said that the cinematic Selma had died not of cancer, but of 'Old Movie Disease'. "Someday somebody may find a cure for cancer, but the terminal sappiness of cancer movies is probably beyond remedy."<ref>, January 10, 1999 – ''The New York Times''</ref>
] of the '']'' likened the memoir to a "miniature '']''. There's not a false moment in the book, and that is high praise indeed."<ref>http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/61077155.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Feb+20%2C+1991&author=JONATHAN+KIRSCH&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&edition=&startpage=6&desc=BOOK+REVIEW+The+Unlikely+Heroics+of+Unstrung+Uncles+UNSTRUNG+HEROES+My+Improbable+Life+With+Four+Impossible+Uncles+by+Franz+Lidz+Random+House%2418.95%2C+189+pages {{dead link|date=October 2010}}</ref>

In '']'', Laurie Stone called ''Unstrung Heroes'': "Astonishing, hilarious, angry, poignant, always pointed."<ref name="amazon1"/>

Of the hardback edition, Franz Lidz once said: "I think of the first editions as my children, because I know where every one of them is."<ref name="autogenerated4"></ref>

=== ''Unstrung Heroes, The Film'' ===

In 1995, the unsentimental ''Unstrung Heroes'' was turned into a sentimental film starring ] and ] as Sidney and Selma Lidz, and directed by ]. The setting was switched from New York to Southern California, and the four mad uncles were reduced to an eccentric Odd Couple. Lidz's contract forbade him to slam ], but he did say: '"The script was very neatly typed.'"<ref></ref> In a 1995 '']'' profile that ran before the film's release, he confessed, "My initial fear was that ] would turn my uncles into Grumpy and Dopey. I never imagined that my life could be turned into '']''."<ref>http://books.google.com/books?id=6-QCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=unstrung+heroes+hebrew&source=bl&ots=WpZ-YXJ4Rs&sig=6IHxhuVT5w_qiMXUhGeG4JwsrwM&hl=en&ei=3dB6S6z9LdGk8AaekqieCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=&f=false</ref> Four years later in an essay for the ''New York Times'', he cracked that the cinematic Selma had died not of cancer, but of Old Movie Disease: "The way Disney killed off my mother -- after fixing pancakes, she praises her kids, plants a perversely passionate kiss on her husband's lips and, to soulful strains of ''],'' drifts off to die in a comfy armchair -- reminded me of ]'s send-up of ''].''" He added, "Someday somebody may find a cure for cancer, but the terminal sappiness of cancer movies is probably beyond remedy."<ref></ref>


=== ''Ghosty Men'' === === ''Ghosty Men'' ===


''Ghosty Men'' (2003) is the story of the ]. Lidz has said that he was inspired by the real-life cautionary tales that his father told him, the most macabre of which was the story of the Collyer brothers, the hermit hoarders of ].<ref>, October 26, 2003 – ''The New York Times''</ref> The book also recounts the parallel life of Arthur Lidz,<ref>, November 2, 2003 – ''Newsday''</ref> the hermit uncle of ''Unstrung Heroes'', who grew up near the Collyer mansion.<ref>, May 16, 2004 – ''Philadelphia Inquirer''</ref>
Homer and Langley Collyer moved into their handsome brownstone in white, upper-class Harlem in 1909. By 1947, however, when the fire department was forced to lower Homer's dead body by rope out of the house he hadn't left in nearly a decade, the neighborhood had degentrified, and the Collyers' home had become a sealed fortress of junk. Dedicated to preserving the past, the brothers had held on to virtually everything they ever had touched.<ref name="barnesandnoble1"></ref>

''Ghosty Men'', Lidz wrote, was inspired by the real-life cautionary tales that his father told him: "At bedtime, I would listen raptly to his urban horror stories, tales that filled the dark with chimera, bogeymen, golems. The most macabre was the tale of the ], the hermit hoarders of ]."<ref></ref> Besides deconstructing the brothers' descent into their own world of filth and isolation, Lidz shares recollections of his Uncle Arthur, an eccentric hoarder who was a featured character in ''Unstrung Heroes''. Arthur amassed everything from magazines to parking tickets plucked off windshields, and lived "nested inside his walls of junk."<ref name="amazon1"/> He was so habitual a hoarder that Lidz's mother used to call him the lost Collyer brother. "Small, bent and eternally boyish, Uncle Arthur dresses in layers of ] overcoats kept closed with rusty safety pins," Lidz wrote. "Like a Beckett tramp, he holds his pants up with bits of rope. Uncle Arthur was a 19-year-old novice collector when he moved to a tiny tenement apartment in Harlem, only three blocks from the Collyer homestead. He already knew that Homer and Langley were the preeminent junk collectors. '"I'd walk by their house and wonder what of value did they have," he said. '"You got to have brains to collect that much stuff. I always wanted to get in touch with them. I always wanted to get in touch with anybody who collected as much as I did. They collected more. They had their junk up to the windows. I didn't have that much." Uncle Arthur does, however, have quite lot, and he has turned squalor into an art form."<ref></ref>

⚫ '']'' critic Adam Bernstein observed: "''Ghosty Men'' has the breezy vibrancy of a magazine story. Like ''Unstrung Heroes'', the new book has to its advantage a sympathy for the forgotten and keen observations about what consoles broken souls. The Collyer Brothers made compelling reading then, as they do now in this short, captivatingly detailed book."<ref>http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/520943591.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Jan+4%2C+2004&author=Pack+Rats&pub=The+Washington+Post&edition=&startpage=T.14&desc=If+anything+should+inspire+s+... {{dead link|date=October 2010}}</ref>

], author of ''Low Life'', wrote: "Franz Lidz's ''Ghosty Men'' is funny and moving and full of odd details, and it will make you clean up your room."<ref name="barnesandnoble1"/>


⚫ In his review for '']'', Adam Bernstein wrote, "The Collyer Brothers made compelling reading then, as they do now in this short, captivatingly detailed book."<ref>, January 4, 2004 – '']''</ref>
=== ''Fairway To Hell'' ===


⚫ === ''Fairway to Hell'' ===
In this wildly comic memoir, Lidz went in search of golf's real soul and takes a globe-hopping and wholly serendipitous journey to the margins of that ancient game. He chronicled his adventures on the links with ] and the drunken heavy metal band ], and a ] farmer who raises ] as caddies. He reported from a ] course at which 15 holes are guarded by live ], the Fattie Open - where you're penalized if you weigh under 250&nbsp;pounds, and a pitch-and-putt tournament at a ] ].<ref></ref> The author encountered a burrowing ] on a course in ] and engaged in an increasingly preposterous e-mail exchange with a Nigerian scam artist about bank accounts and rocket golf carts.<ref name="amazon2"></ref> "Here, there and everywhere body parts – normally
concealed from public view -- bobbed, swayed and quivered," Lidz wrote of the nudist colony. "Some breasts were the size of ]; others hung like head covers stuffed with bricks. Some men had chest hair thicker than ] pelts; some women had hair on their heads, but nowhere else. A few of the ladies wore day dresses, untied and unbuttoned. A few of the gents wore bulging T-shirts from which drooped what looked to be a Thanksgiving turkey's giblets. No woman carried a purse, though one man sported a ]. In case you were wondering, his bag didn't match his shoes."<ref name="amazon2"/>


''Fairway to Hell'' is a 2008 memoir centering on Lidz' unusual golfing experiences: encountering nudists, llama caddies<ref name="philly1"/> and celebrities like the heavy metal band ].<ref>, November 27, 1986 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref>, April, 2008 – ''ESPN''</ref> ] reviewed the book on the ] show '']'', saying "His estimable wit is also evident in ''Fairway To Hell''."<ref>, May 30, 2008 – ''Only A Game, NPR''</ref>
On the ] show '']'', host ] remarked: "Nobody who read ''Sports Illustrated'' during Franz Lidz’s employment there needs to be told that his writing is funny. Happily, his estimable wit is also evident in ''Fairway To Hell''."


== Collaborations == == Collaborations ==


Lidz has written numerous essays for ] with novelist and former ] colleague ]. Three of them appear under the title ''Piscopo Agonistes'' in the 2000 collection '']: The Best Contemporary Humor''.<ref></ref> Lidz has written numerous essays for '']'' with novelist and former '']'' colleague ].<ref>, November 15, 1998 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, January 30, 2000 – ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, August 5, 2001 – ''The New York Times''</ref> Three of them appear under the title ''Piscopo Agonistes'' in the 2000 collection ''Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor''.


Lidz has been a commentator for '']'' on ],<ref>, November 19, 1998 – ''The Tuscaloosa News''</ref> and was a guest film critic on the syndicated '']'', following ]'s passing. The segment did not air.<ref>, April 16, 2000 – ''The New York Times''</ref> He also appeared on ]'s ].<ref name="autogenerated1"/>
⚫ == Personal Life ==


⚫ == Personal life ==
Lidz lives on a six-acre farm in ]'s Brandywine Valley with his wife Maggie(an author and historian at the ] in ])<ref></ref>, two daughters <ref></ref><ref></ref> and an assortment of pets. <!--On his first date with Maggie he realized that one week earlier her father, journalist Gerald Renner,<ref></ref> had picked him up hitchhiking on ]. --> Lidz, when he was a grad student, married his wife a day after her high school graduation. <!-- For years afterward, Maggie's three younger sisters would greet their dad <ref></ref> when he got home by asking: "Daddy, did you pick us up a hitchhiker?" Several decades "and two beautiful daughters later, I haven't met anyone else I'd rather be around," wrote Lidz. "Maggie still surprises me, still shakes me out of complacency, still makes me laugh. She's not sentimental; she sensible, decent, and much smarter than me. She showed me how to feel comfortable in my own skin, to embrace ordinary happiness. Which is pretty extraordinary."<ref></ref> --> His daughters Gogo and Daisy Daisy (Didi)<ref></ref> were named after the protagonists in ].


Lidz lives in ]<ref>, Fall, 2020 - ''Ojai Quarterly'', pgs. 38-41</ref> with his wife, Maggie, an author and onetime historian at the ] in ].<ref>, January 21, 2010- ''The New York Times''</ref><ref>, February 18, 2014- ''Slate''</ref><ref>, December, 2009 ''Delaware Today''</ref><ref>, February, 2009 '']''</ref> They have two daughters.<ref name="autogenerated118">, June 23, 2003 – ''Sports Illustrated''</ref><ref>, November 21, 2004 ''Los Angeles Times''</ref><ref>, ''Newsweek''</ref><ref>, July 23, 2010 – ''The New York Times''</ref>
Lidz has been a commentator for ] on NPR,<ref>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1817&dat=19981119&id=EDodAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BqYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2314,3343451</ref> and a guest film critic on ]'s syndicated TV show.<ref></ref> <!-- He insists that his dream double-play combination is Ginsberg to Whitman to Pound because they represent "true poetry in motion."<ref name="autogenerated3"/> Inspired by the advice of ] scholar ] ("You have an obligation to visit the great men of your time"), Lidz once made a pilgrimage to ]'s villa in ], ], inveigling his way in with the line: "I'm on a world tour of the homes of everyone I've ever seen on ]." --> He has also appeared on ]'s show. <!-- with his pet parrots Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Falbo, unsettling the host with the observation: "Peter speaks 16 bird dialects, including loon. He's learning Waring Blender, but I can't let him get too close to ours. He thinks it's a ]." -->


== References == == References ==
{{Reflist}}
*http://www.portfolio.com/contributors/Franz-Lidz
* http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/franz_lidz/archive/index.html
* http://www.gq.com/contributors/frank-lidz
* http://www.mensjournal.com/the-shark-is-back
* http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=Lidz&d=&o=&v=&c=&n=10&dp=0&daterange=period&srcht=a&year1=1981&mon1=01&day1=01&year2=2010&mon2=02&day2=04&bylquery=Franz%20Lidz&sort=oldest


{{Authority control}}
<references/>


{{DEFAULTSORT:Lidz, Franz}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Lidz, Franz}}
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Latest revision as of 04:52, 18 December 2024

American writer (born 1951)

Franz Lidz
BornFranz Ira Lidz
(1951-09-24) September 24, 1951 (age 73)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • memoirist
  • American professional basketball executive
Alma materAntioch College
Notable worksUnstrung Heroes (1991)
Ghosty Men (2003)
Fairway To Hell (2008)
SpouseMaggie Lidz (1976–present)
ChildrenGogo, Daisy

Franz Lidz (born September 24, 1951) is an American writer, journalist and pro basketball executive.

A New York Times archaeology, science and film essayist, who originated the archeological column "Lost and Found". He's a former Sports Illustrated senior writer,Smithsonian columnist and a onetime vice president for the Detroit Pistons. His childhood memoir Unstrung Heroes was adapted into a Hollywood film of the same title in 1995.

Early life

Lidz was born in Manhattan, to Sidney, a Jewish electronics engineer who designed the first transistorized portable tape recorder (the Steelman Transitape), and Selma, a homemaker. His father gave him early exposure to authors like Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Eugène Ionesco.

At age nine, still named Stephen before later legally taking Franz as his first name, he moved to the Philadelphia suburbs. Lidz attended high school in Cheltenham and college at Antioch College, where he was a theater major.

Career

Lidz was a novice reporter at the weekly Sanford Star, where he wrote a column and covered police and fire beats. He left Maine to become a crime reporter and write a column called "Insect Jazz" for an alternative newspaper in Baltimore. He later became an editor of Johns Hopkins University Magazine.

In 1980, he joined the staff of Sports Illustrated, even though he had never read the magazine and had covered only one sporting event in his life – a pigeon race in Shapleigh, Maine. Lidz remained on the writing staff for 27 years. In 2007 he jumped to the short-lived business monthly Conde Nast Portfolio, and then WSJ. magazine before landing at Smithsonian in 2012. His first feature story in The New York Times, on making the second descent of the Zambezi River, appeared on January 30, 1983.

Among his most controversial features are essays on reappraising the dodo; reconsidering Neanderthals; the effects of climate change on glacial archaeology; the Pacific Northwest barred owl cull; Hannibal; the 2002 Paris-to-Dakar Rally; George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees' line of succession; the hijinks of onetime Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling; and a S.I. cover story with NBA player Jason Collins in which Collins became the first active male in one of the four major North American team sports to announce he was gay.

Notable works

Unstrung Heroes

Unstrung Heroes is about Lidz's childhood, with his mother, father and his dad's four older brothers. He had previously written about two of the uncles in Sports Illustrated.

In his review of Unstrung Heroes in The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt called the memoir "unusual and affecting ... a melancholy, funny book, a loony tune played with touching disharmony on mournful woodwinds and a noisy klaxon". Jonathan Kirsch of the Los Angeles Times likened the memoir to a "miniature Brothers Karamazov. There's not a false moment in the book, and that is high praise indeed." The Village Voice called Unstrung Heroes: "Astonishing, hilarious, angry, poignant, always pointed."

In 1995, Unstrung Heroes was adapted into a film of the same title. The setting was switched from New York City to Southern California, and the four crazy uncles were reduced to an eccentric odd couple. Asked what he thought of the script, Lidz said: "It's very neatly typed". He was unhappy with the adaptation, but was prevented by his contract from publicly criticizing it. "My initial fear was that Disney would turn my uncles into Grumpy and Dopey", he told New York magazine. "I never imagined my life could be turned into Old Yeller." In a later essay for The New York Times, he said that the cinematic Selma had died not of cancer, but of 'Old Movie Disease'. "Someday somebody may find a cure for cancer, but the terminal sappiness of cancer movies is probably beyond remedy."

Ghosty Men

Ghosty Men (2003) is the story of the Collyer brothers. Lidz has said that he was inspired by the real-life cautionary tales that his father told him, the most macabre of which was the story of the Collyer brothers, the hermit hoarders of Harlem. The book also recounts the parallel life of Arthur Lidz, the hermit uncle of Unstrung Heroes, who grew up near the Collyer mansion.

In his review for The Washington Post, Adam Bernstein wrote, "The Collyer Brothers made compelling reading then, as they do now in this short, captivatingly detailed book."

Fairway to Hell

Fairway to Hell is a 2008 memoir centering on Lidz' unusual golfing experiences: encountering nudists, llama caddies and celebrities like the heavy metal band Judas Priest. Bill Littlefield reviewed the book on the National Public Radio show Only A Game, saying "His estimable wit is also evident in Fairway To Hell."

Collaborations

Lidz has written numerous essays for The New York Times with novelist and former Sports Illustrated colleague Steve Rushin. Three of them appear under the title Piscopo Agonistes in the 2000 collection Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor.

Lidz has been a commentator for Morning Edition on NPR, and was a guest film critic on the syndicated Siskel & Ebert, following Gene Siskel's passing. The segment did not air. He also appeared on David Letterman's show.

Personal life

Lidz lives in Ojai, California with his wife, Maggie, an author and onetime historian at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. They have two daughters.

References

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  2. "Film; The Scenery, Though, He Won't Chew", September 29, 2002 – The New York Times
  3. "Biblical Adversity in a '60s Suburb", September 23, 2009 – The New York Times
  4. "Here Lies the Skull of Pliny the Elder, Maybe", February 14, 2020 – The New York Times
  5. "At the Sourdough Library, With Some Very Old Mothers", April 11, 2020 – The New York Times
  6. "She Fell Nearly Two Miles And Walked Away", June 18, 2021 – The New York Times
  7. "What The Ancient Bog Bodies Knew", January 30, 2023 – The New York Times
  8. "What To Do With A Bug Named Hitler", December 26, 2023 – The New York Times
  9. "Ancient Romans Dropped Their Bling Down the Drain, Too", May 1, 2023 – The New York Times
  10. "Put a Bird on It? Ancient Egypt Was Way Ahead of Us", June 6, 2023 – The New York Times
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  12. "Jason Collins", May 6, 2013 – Sports Illustrated
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  14. "Behold The Blobfish", November, 2015 - Smithsonian
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  36. "What is Jeopardy!?", May 1, 1989 - Sports Illustrated
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  46. "Who’s the Dodo Now? A Famously Extinct Bird, Reconsidered", September 20, 2024 – The New York Times
  47. "What Do We Really Know About Neanderthals?", May, 2019 Smithsonian
  48. "As Earth Warms, Old Mayhem and Secrets Emerge From the Ice", November 2, 2021 – The New York Times
  49. "They Shoot Owls in California, Don’t They?", April 29, 2024 – New York Times
  50. "How (and Where) Did Hannibal Cross the Alps?", July, 2017 - Smithsonian
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  58. "Donald Sterling Has Been Lost In Another Century For Some Time", April 27, 2014 – Chicago Sun-Times
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  63. "Jason Collins, 10 Years Later: Progress Made, but There's Work to Be Done for LGBTQ Athletes", April 25, 2023 - Sports Illustrated
  64. "Summer Films: Creature Features; The Ongoing Adventures of Moose and Squirrel", April 20, 2000 – The New York Times
  65. "To Our Readers", September 25, 1995 – Sports Illustrated
  66. "My Uncle, The Collector: A Hobbyist on a Shoestring", January 25, 1987 – Sports Illustrated
  67. "Uncle Harry Never Lost A Fight But He Never Really Fought One, Either", December 20, 1982 – Sports Illustrated
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  74. "The Paper Chase", October 26, 2003 – The New York Times
  75. "A Trashy Read / Hoarding hermits? A typist's true tale", November 2, 2003 – Newsday
  76. "Author delves into his inner hoarder His eccentric uncle led him to write about the Collyer brothers", May 16, 2004 – Philadelphia Inquirer
  77. "If Anything Should Inspire ...", January 4, 2004 – The Washington Post
  78. "Heavy Metal Rockers Find Peace And Quiet—and Rock Fans—on The Links", November 27, 1986 – Sports Illustrated
  79. "Fairway to Hell", April, 2008 – ESPN
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  82. "Here A Comic Genius, There A Comic Genius", January 30, 2000 – The New York Times
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  86. "The Uses of Irreverence", Fall, 2020 - Ojai Quarterly, pgs. 38-41
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  93. Gogo Lidz: Staff Writer, Newsweek
  94. "Daisy Lidz, Thor Ritz", July 23, 2010 – The New York Times
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