{{short description|American journalist (1898–1975)}} {{More citations needed|date=June 2024}} {{Use mdy dates|date=June 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = Lawrence Lipton | image = Lawrence Lipton and DUHAB.jpg | caption = Lipton and his "robot", 1965 | birth_date = {{birth year|1898}} | birth_place = Łódź, Poland | death_date = {{death date and given age|mf=yes|1975|07|09|77}} | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | occupation = Journalist, writer, poet | spouse = {{ubl| * Dorothy Omansky (divorced) * Betty Weinberg (divorced) * Craig Rice (divorced) * Nettie Brooks (m. 1948)}} | children = James Lipton }} '''Lawrence Lipton''' (né Lipschitz; 1898 – July 9, 1975) was a Polish-born Jewish American journalist, writer, and Beat poet, as well as the father of James Lipton.<ref name="edu">{{cite web|url=http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/index.html|title=LAWRENCE LIPTON|last=Lipton|first=Nettie|year=1983|publisher=University of Southern California|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080524224250/http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/index.html|archivedate=May 24, 2008|accessdate=October 23, 2007}}</ref> He is also known for coining the term ''Disneyfication'' in 1959.
== Early life == Lipton was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1898,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Maynard |first=John Arthur |url=https://archive.org/details/venicewestbeatge00mayn/page/230/mode/2up |title=Venice West |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=1991 |pages=230 |isbn=978-0-8135-1653-0 |access-date=August 1, 2024}}</ref> the son of Rose and Abraham Lipschitz.<ref name="edu" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Bernstein |first=Adam |date=March 3, 2020 |title=James Lipton, host of ''Inside the Actors Studio'', dies at 93 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-lipton-host-of-inside-the-actors-studio-dies-at-93/2020/03/02/ba014f06-5cb0-11ea-b014-4fafa866bb81_story.html |access-date=August 1, 2024 |newspaper=The Washington Post |issn=0190-8286 |oclc=1330888409}}{{WaPoCheckDates}}</ref> He immigrated to the United States in 1903 and settled in Chicago, Illinois.
== Career == Lipton began his career as a graphic artist and won an award for his illustration of a version of the ''Haggadah'', the Passover seder liturgical text.<ref name="edu" /> He also worked as a journalist, writing for the ''Jewish Daily Forward'' and working for a movie theater as a publicity director.
During the 1920s, he associated with Chicago writers Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, Harriet Monroe, Ben Hecht, and Carl Sandburg.<ref name="edu" /> Lipton later wrote for ''Atlantic Monthly'', ''The Quarterly Review of Literature'', and the ''Chicago Review''.<ref name="edu" /> His other novels include ''Brother, The Laugh Is Bitter'' and ''In Secret Battle'', as well as a poetry book, ''Rainbow at Midnight''. His book ''The Holy Barbarians'' (1959) linked Lipton to the Beats as well as coined the term ''Disneyfication''.<ref name="edu" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Wills |first=John |title=Disney Culture |date=2017 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |series=Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |chapter=The World According to Disney}}</ref> He appeared in ''The Hypnotic Eye'' (1960) as "King of the Beatniks".
In April 1963, he was a panelist at the UCLA Arts Convention along with August Heckscher, Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, Aldous Huxley, Herbert Blau. It was hosted by the then-dean of the UCLA College of Fine Arts, William W. Melnitz.
In the episode "Swan Song" on the show ''Gilmore Girls'', Rory is showing Jess her copy of ''The Holy Barbarians'' by Lipton, and says that he is "the father of the guy that does those Actors Studio interviews on TV", to which Jess responds "It's weird that a beatniky guy would have a conservative son like that."
''The Holy Barbarians'' was also used as a band name for Holy Barbarians, a short-lived garage rock band from Liverpool, England, active from 1995 to 1997.
== Personal life == Lipton's first wife was Dorothy Omansky. He next married Betty Weinberg, a teacher; their son was ''Inside the Actors Studio'' host James Lipton.<ref name="edu" /> He was later married to author Craig Rice and Nettie Esther Brooks (from 1948 to 1975).<ref name="edu" />
Lipton died in Los Angeles on July 9, 1975, at the age of 77.<ref>{{Cite news |date=July 11, 1975 |title=Writer Dies |url=https://archive.org/details/benton-harbor-herald-palladium-1975-07-11/page/n23/mode/2up |access-date=August 1, 2024 |work=Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium |agency=Associated Press}}</ref>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == *[https://web.archive.org/web/20071127045018/http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/arc/findingaids/lipton/inventory.html Lawrence Lipton Papers Inventory] *[https://www.americanethnography.com/article.php?id=126 American Ethnography Quasimonthly | Excerpt from ''The Holy Barbarians'']
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lipton, Lawrence}} Category:1898 births Category:1975 deaths Category:Journalists from Chicago Category:20th-century American journalists Category:Polish emigrants to the United States Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent Category:American male poets Category:Jewish American poets Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American poets Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:20th-century American Jews Category:20th-century American male journalists