Bruce Jay Friedman

Bruce Jay Friedman
Born	April 26, 1930 (age 85) Bronx, New York, U.S.
Occupation	novelist, screenwriter, playwright, actor
Spouse(s)	Ginger Howard (m. 1954; divorced; 3 children) Patricia J. O'Donohue (m. 1983; 1 child)

Bruce Jay Friedman (born April 26, 1930) is an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor.

Life and career

Friedman was born to a Jewish family^[1] and raised in the Bronx, the son of Irving and Mollie (Liebowitz) Friedman. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School.^[2] He then attended the University of Missouri as a journalism major, then served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Air Force from 1951 to 1953. In 1954, he married the model (now an acting coach and writer) Ginger Howard. In the same year, Friedman worked for many of the era's famous men's magazines through Magazine Management Company. Friedman ended up as an executive editor in charge of the magazines Men (not the present magazine of the same title), Male, and Man's World.

In 1962, Friedman published Stern, the first of his eight novels. In 1988, he appeared in Woody Allen's film Another Woman. His latest collection of short fiction, Three Balconies, appeared in September 2008, from Biblioasis, who also published his 2011 memoir Lucky Bruce.^[3] A collection of four plays [Scuba Duba, Steambath, Sardines and The Trial], in a collection titled "3.1 Plays," was published in January 2012 by Leaping Lion Books.^[4]

Friedman had three children with his first wife, actress and teacher Ginger Howard, with whom he split in 1978: writer, musician Josh Alan Friedman, cartoonist Drew Friedman, and photographer Kipp Friedman. He has one daughter—writer Molly Friedman—with second wife Patricia J. O'Donohue. Friedman currently resides in New York City.

Novels

• Stern (1962)
• A Mother's Kisses (1964)
• The Dick (1970)
• About Harry Towns (1974)
• Tokyo Woes (1985)
• The Current Climate (1989)
• A Father's Kisses (1996)
• Violencia!: A Musical Novel (2002)

Short fiction

• Black Angels: Stories (1966)
• Far From the City of Class (1966)
• Black Humor (1969) (Editor)
• Let's Hear It for a Beautiful Guy (1985)
• The Collected Short Fiction of Bruce Jay Friedman (2000)
• Sexual Pensees (with Andre Barbe) (2006)
• Three Balconies: Stories and a Novella (2008)

Filmography

• The Heartbreak Kid (1972) (screenplay by Neil Simon) (based on the Short Story "A Change of Plan")
• The Ted Bessell Show (1973) (TV)
• Fore Play (1975) (Story)
• Stir Crazy (1980)
• Doctor Detroit (with Robert Boris and Carl Gottlieb) (1983)
• Splash (with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel) (1984)
• The Lonely Guy (1984) (screenplay by Neil Simon, Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels) (Based on his book "The Lonely Guy's Book of Life")
• Brazzaville Teen-Ager (2013) (screenplay with Michael Cera) (Based on the short story)^[5]

Plays

• Scuba Duba (1967)
• Steambath (1970)
• Have You Spoken to Any Jews Lately? (1995)
• 3.1 Plays (2012)

Non-fiction

• The Rascal's Guide (editor and contributor) (1959)
• The Lonely Guy's Book of Life (1978)
• Even The Rhinos Were Nymphos (2000)
• The Slightly Older Guy (2001)
• Lucky Bruce: A Literary Memoir (2011)

References

1. Taub, Michael; Shatzky, Joel (1997). Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook. Greenwood. p. 92-96. ISBN 978-0313294624.
2. Greenfield, Josh. "Bruce Jay Friedman Is Hanging by His Thumbs", The New York Times, January 14, 1968. Accessed September 15, 2009. "While attending DeWitt Clinton High School, Friedman became interested in writing for the first time."
3. "Biblioasis site for Lucky Bruce" Accessed November 5, 2011.
4. "Leaping Lion Books Blog" Accessed November 5, 2011.
5. Video on YouTube

2. Sohn, Amy (October 2008). "Bruce Jay Friedman [interview]". The Believer 6 (8): 57–64.

External links

• Audio: Bruce Jay Friedman at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2005
• Bruce Jay Friedman at the Internet Movie Database
• Bruce Jay Friedman at AllMovie
• Biblioasis site for Lucky Bruce
• Leaping Lion Books Blogsite following the publication of "3.1 Plays"