Israel Horovitz

Horovitz was born to a Jewish family[2][3] in Wakefield, Massachusetts, the son of Hazel Rose (née Solberg) and Julius Charles Horovitz, a lawyer.[4] At age 13, he wrote his first novel, which was rejected by Simon & Schuster but complimented for its "wonderful, childlike qualities."[2] At age 17, he wrote his first play, entitled The Comeback, which was performed at nearby Suffolk University.[2] He worked as a taxi driver, a stagehand and an advertising executive before having his first success in the theatre with his play The Indian Wants the Bronx, which featured two yet-undiscovered future film stars: John Cazale and Al Pacino. The play premiered in 1966 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. Al Pacino and John Cazale starred; it was the first of six collaborations between them. The play was then staged in conjunction with the playwright's It's Called the Sugar Plum and directed by James Hammerstein as the opening production of the new off-Broadway Astor Place Theatre, where it opened on January 17, 1968 and ran for 177 performances. Following his extraordinary debut, about which The New York Post’s Jerry Tallmer wrote “Welcome, Mr. Horovitz,” Random House published a collection of four of his plays, entitled First Season (1968).

Horovitz has written two novels: Cappella (Harper and Row) and Guignol’s Legacy (Three Rooms Press); a novella Nobody Loves Me (Les Editions de Minuit); and a collection of poetry Heaven and Others Poems (Three Rooms Press). His memoir, Un New-Yorkais a Paris (Grasset), was published in France in 2011.

Horovitz wrote more than 70 produced plays, many of which have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages worldwide.[5] Among Horovitz's best-known plays are Line (a revival of which opened in 1974 and is NYC's longest-running play, closing in 2018 after 43 years of continuous performance at Off-Off-Broadway's 13th Street Repertory Theatre),[6][7] 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.

Horovitz divided his time between the US and France, where he often directed 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.[8] 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.[8]

In 1979 Horovitz founded the Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts, continuing to serve as its artistic director for 28 years. He also founded The New York Playwrights Lab in 1975, and served as the NYPL's artistic director. He was co-director of Compagnia Horovitz-Paciotto, an Italian theatre-company that produces Horovitz's plays, exclusively. In addition, Horovitz was one of a select group of non-actors awarded membership in The Actors Studio.[9]

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.[10] Horovitz has also worked with The Byre Theatre of St Andrews, Scotland.[11][12]

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.[13] Horovitz adapted his stage play[14] 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 2014.

He has won numerous awards for his work, including two Obies, the Drama Desk Award, The European Academy Award – Best Screenplay (for Sunshine), and 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.

On November 30, 2017, a New York Times article stated that nine women said that Horovitz had sexually assaulted or harassed them between 1986 and 2016. Some of the women were under the age of legal consent at the time. As a result, Horovitz left the Gloucester Stage Company (GSC), the theater company he had founded.[19] His son Adam Horovitz said, "I believe the allegations against my father are true, and I stand behind the women that made them."[20]

In 1993, The Boston Phoenix published an article which covered a series of accusations against Horovitz by six different women associated with the GSC. The actresses and staff members alleged that the playwright used offensive language, kissed, and/or fondled them. In response, Horovitz said, "it's rubbish. Someone was fired, and this is their revenge."[21] At the time, no charges or lawsuits were filed against Horovitz, nor was any disciplinary action taken by the GSC's board.[22]

The February 5, 2018 episode of the Hidden Brain podcast Why Now? features in-depth interviews with women who have accused Horovitz of sexual assault. On February 19, actress Heather Graham, who briefly dated Horovitz's son Adam, appeared on Marc Maron's podcast WTF and said that the elder Horovitz made predatory advances toward her following an audition for one of his plays in 1989.[23]

He was married three times:

• Elaine Abber 1959–1960; one child:
  • Julie
• Doris Keefe (1960-1972) a painter of Roman Catholic Irish descent.[24] They had three children, who were raised secularly:[2][3]
  • Rachael Horovitz (born 1961), a film producer known for producing the films About Schmidt and Moneyball[25]
  • Matthew Horovitz (born 1964), a television producer-director known for producing the NBA Network[26]
  • Adam Horovitz (born 1966), member of Beastie Boys[20]
• Gillian Adams, an Anglican (born 1955) with whom he had two children, raised in the Jewish faith:[3] twins Hannah and Oliver Horovitz (born 1985).[3]

Horovitz died on November 9, 2020 from cancer in Manhattan.[27]

• Official website
• Horovitz, Israel at IMDb

• 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