Lee Israel

Early life, family and education

Israel was born in Brooklyn, graduated from Midwood High School, and in 1961 from Brooklyn College. She was the daughter of Jack and Sylvia Israel. She had a brother, Edward.

Journalist and author

She began a career as a freelance writer in the 1960s. The November 1967 edition of Esquire ran her profile of Katharine Hepburn for which Israel had visited California shortly before the death of Hepburn's boyfriend Spencer Tracy in his apartment in Beverly Hills. Israel's magazine career continued into the 1970s.

In the 1970s and 1980s she wrote biographies of actress Tallulah Bankhead, journalist and game show panelist Dorothy Kilgallen and cosmetics tycoon Estée Lauder. The biography of Kilgallen was well received and appeared on The New York Times Best Sellers List.

In her memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? published decades later, Israel claimed that in 1983 she had received a publisher's advance to begin a project on Lauder, "about whom Macmillan wanted an unauthorized biography — warts and all. I accepted the offer though I didn't give a shit about her warts." Israel made the additional claim that a series of attempts were made by Lauder to bribe her into dropping the project, which Israel said were refused. In the book Israel discredited Lauder's public statements that she was born into European aristocracy and attended church regularly in Palm Beach, Florida.

When Lauder realized that Macmillan planned to publish Israel's book, Lauder herself wrote a memoir that her publisher timed to coincide with Israel's book in the fall of 1985. Israel's book was panned by critics and proved a commercial failure. Israel had this to say about the impact of this episode with Lauder, "I had made a mistake. Instead of taking a great deal of money from a woman rich as Oprah, I published a bad, unimportant book, rushed out in months to beat [Lauder's own memoir] to market."

Following her failure with the Lauder biography, Israel's career went into decline, compounded by alcoholism and a personality that some found difficult.

Criminal career

Israel is best remembered for her criminal enterprises. By 1992, Israel's career as a writer of books and magazine articles had ended. She had tried and failed to support herself with wage labour. During that year, she began forging letters from deceased writers and actors, estimated at over 400.

Later she began stealing actual letters and autographed papers of famous persons from archives and libraries. When stealing original papers she would replace them with forged copies. She sold both forged and stolen original works. This continued for over a year before Israel was arrested. In June 1993, Israel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property, for which she served six months under house arrest and five years probation.

Israel later expressed pride in her criminal accomplishments, especially the forgeries.

Memoir controversy

Some reviewers of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, the book in which Israel confessed her crimes in detail, questioned the decision of Simon & Schuster to publish it so that she could profit financially from the sales. A published author and book reviewer named Barbara Bamberger Scott wrote in 2010: "What this is is a hilarious memoir of a self-described miscreant and her pursuit of a meal ticket. Ironically, in a joke the reader will share, by purchasing her book we all participate in buying her that meal." One of the New York bookstore owners who purchased Israel's letters in 1992 was quoted by The New York Times upon Simon & Schuster's publication of Israel's memoir in 2008: "I’m certainly not angry anymore, though it was an expensive and very large learning experience for me," said [Naomi] Hample. "And she’s really an excellent writer. She made the letters terrific."

Death

Lee Israel died on December 24, 2014 from myeloma in New York City. According to her New York Times obituary, she had lived alone and had no children. Regarding her family, she wrote in her memoir, "I had a brother with whom I had never had much in common."

Proposed film

In April 2015, it was announced that a film version of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, starring Julianne Moore and directed by Marielle Heller, will be produced. In July 2015, Moore dropped out of the project. In May 2016, Melissa McCarthy was confirmed to be playing Israel.