When Fran Lebowitz was a guest on a CBC talk show in 1978
Subject of a 2021 Netflix series, the New York City author has always had a distinct point of view
It sounds like a back-cover blurb: "the funniest book I've read in a long time."
But that was CBC host Peter Gzowski describing author Fran Lebowitz's essay collection Metropolitan Life in 1978, when she was a guest on his late-night TV talk show 90 Minutes Live.
Over 40 years later, Lebowitz still has an audience for what the New York Times calls her "acerbic commentary" on her daily existence in New York City.
And she's still appearing as a guest on CBC talk shows, speaking to CBC Radio's Tom Power on q this week.
Lebowitz is the subject of Pretend It's a City, a 2021 Netflix series directed by Lebowitz's friend Martin Scorsese, in which she "shares stories about her life and insights about the city's constant evolution in recent decades," said the Times earlier this month. It was filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Back in 1978, the year Metropolitan Life came out, Lebowitz's book apparently had sharp things to say about talk shows and their hosts — and then she found herself part of the talk-show circuit.
"You really take the mickey out of the whole talk-show thing, right?" said Gzowski, when Lebowitz was his guest in May 1978.
"That was before I needed it," she replied.
Later in the interview, Lebowitz agreed with Gzowski's observation that she didn't believe in "all the trendy things."
"If I had any title, I'd like it to be that of a trend-squelcher," she said.
She then went on to discuss her ideas about the "overly pious" attitude that people held toward houseplants.
"They are, after all, not children," she said.
'Historical gossip'
Five months later, CBC reporter Russ Patrick met Lebowitz on her home turf in New York City. By then, he said, Metropolitan Life had sold "more than 100,000 copies," due largely to word-of-mouth promotion.
He wanted to hear more about her perspective on the news.
"I think news is very rarely important," said Lebowitz. "The only news that people are really interested in is news about themselves, which is in fact gossip."
"News is just kind of historical gossip. It's gossip about people who are more important than you are."
Lebowitz published another book of essays, Social Studies, in 1981, and more recently she had an occasional recurring role as a judge on the TV dramas Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. She also had a small role in Scorsese's 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street.
According to the New Yorker magazine, she makes her living today through speaking engagements.
