The New Issue: Leo Lerman
Joel Kaye, Andrew Belonsky and Stephen Pascal poking around Leo Lerman’s desk. Leo’s Hedda Stern portrait hangs in the background.
SP: I think that one of Leo’s legacies is that he did bring up a couple generations of young editors. These are people who learned from him how to – they observed his knack for matching talent to a project, for identifying somebody who’s real talent and not just publicity, for – and some of these people, they have a certain seriousness about what they’re doing. I think Leo taught people that. That’s a real legacy, especially in a business like magazines.
JK: He was an enabler. He always worried about his people. To the very end, he was worried about his babies. And I think these people will admit to it. I think they’ve said it to me – they’ve internalized him: they hear his voice, they see him.
GF: So do I, all the time.
SP: One of the things about his legacy that’s difficult to track is that he was very generous and very adept at helping people figure out what they should do and what their next project should be and whom they should work for. You can’t map that.
This book is terrific!
Thanks for that…and yes, read the book.
I loved the current pictures too!
STB
What’s pretty extraordinary about Lerman’s journals — aside from the thoughtful writing and personal honesty — is his first-person candid commentary about still-fascinating cultural figures such as his buddy Marlene Dietrich (who tells LL that she doesn’t like sex, but since men seem to expect it from a sex symbol, however old she’s getting, Dietrich just gives in to get it over with) and Maria Callas (who spills the beans about Ari Onassis’s preference for anal sex and how Jackie O refused to go that far). It’s like an insider’s guide to the realities behind 20th-century culture.