Israel Horovitz

Israel Horovitz (born March 31, 1939) is an American playwright, director, and actor.

Early life and career

Horovitz was born to a Jewish family^[1][2] in Wakefield, Massachusetts, the son of Hazel Rose (née Solberg) and Julius Charles Horovitz, a lawyer.^[3] At age 13, he wrote his first novel which was rejected by Simon & Schuster but complimented for its “wonderful, childlike qualities.”^[1] At age 17, he wrote his first play entitled The Comeback which was performed at nearby Suffolk University^[1] beginning his career as a playwright. In 2014 he published a collection of poems Heaven and Other Poems through Three Rooms Press.^[4][5]

Theatre career

Horovitz has written more than 70 produced plays, many of which have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages worldwide.^[6] Among Horovitz's best-known plays are Line (a revival of which opened in 1974 and is NYC's longest-running play, now in its 40th year of continuous performance at Off-Off-Broadway's 13th Street Repertory Theatre),^[7][8] Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, The Primary English Class, The Widow's Blind Date, What Strong Fences Make, and The Indian Wants the Bronx, for which he won the Obie Award for Best Play, and which featured two yet-undiscovered future film stars: John Cazale and Al Pacino.

Horovitz divides his time between the USA and France, where he often directs French-language productions of his plays. On his 70th birthday, Horovitz was decorated by the French government as Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.^[9] The 70/70 Horovitz Project was created by NYC Barefoot Theatre Company to celebrate Horovitz's 70th birthday. During the year following March 31, 2009, 70 of Horovitz's plays had productions and/or reading by theatre companies around the globe, including the national theatres of Nigeria, Benin, Greece and Ghana. He is the most-produced American playwright in French theatre history.^[10]

Horovitz is Founding Artistic Director of the Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a theatre he created in 1979 and served as its Artistic Director for 28 years. He also founded The New York Playwrights Lab in 1975, and still serves as the NYPL's Artistic Director. He is co-director of Compagnia Horovitz-Paciotto, an Italian theatre-company that produces Horovitz's plays, exclusively. In addition, Horovitz is one of a select group of non-actors awarded membership in The Actors Studio.^[11]

Horovitz had a long-term friendship with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and often found in Beckett a thematic and stylistic model and inspiration for his own work.^[12] Horovitz has recently been working with The Byre Theatre of St Andrews, Scotland.^[13][14]

Film career

His screenplay for the 1982 film Author! Author!, starring Al Pacino, is a largely autobiographical account of a playwright dealing with the stress of having his play produced on Broadway while trying to raise a large family. Other Horovitz-penned films include the award-winning Sunshine, co-written with Istvan Szabo (European Academy Award - Best Screenplay), 3 Weeks After Paradise (which he directed and in which he starred), James Dean, an award-winning biography of the actor, and The Strawberry Statement (Prix du Jury, Cannes Film festival, 1970), a movie adapted from a journalistic novel by James Simon Kunen that deals with the student political unrest of the 1960s. Horovitz adapted his stage-play My Old Lady for the screen, which he directed in summer, 2013, starring Maggie Smith, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Dominique Pinon. The film was released in cinemas worldwide in fall of 2014.

Awards

He has won numerous awards for his work, including two Obies, the Drama Desk Award, The European Academy Award - Best Screenplay (for Sunshine),The Sony Radio Academy Award (for Man In Snow on BBC-Radio 4).^[15] He also won an Award in Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters; The Governor of Massachusetts' Leadership Award;^[16] The Prix de Plaisir du Theatre; The Prix Italia (for radio plays); The Writers Guild of Canada Best Screenwriter Award; The Christopher Award; the Elliot Norton Prize;^[17] a Lifetime Achievement Award from B'nai B'rith; the Literature Prize of Washington College; an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Salem State College; Boston Public Library's Literary Lights Award;^[18] the Walker Hancock Prize, and many others.

Personal life

He has been married three times:

• Elaine Abber 1959-1960 One child:
  • Julie
• Doris Keefe, a painter of Roman Catholic Irish descent.^[19] She died at age 45 of cirrhosis of the liver.^[19] They had three children, who were raised secularly:^[1][2]
  • Rachael Horovitz (born 1961), a film producer known for producing the films About Schmidt and Moneyball^[1]
  • Matthew Horovitz (born 1964), a television producer-director known for producing the NBA Network^[1]
  • Adam Horovitz (born 1966), member of the Beastie Boys^[1]
• Gillian Adams, an Anglican (born 1955) with whom he has two children, raised in the Jewish faith:^[1][2] twins Hannah and Oliver Horovitz (born 1985).^[1][2]

Filmography

Writer-film

References

External links

• Horovitz, Israel at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Israel Horovitz papers, 1962-1989 (bulk 1968-1975), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
• Israel Horovitz: A Collection of Critical Essays The Influence of Samuel Beckett on Israel Horovitz by Robert Scanlan