RIP: Ira Levin, 78
November 13th, 2007 by Menachem Wecker
Ira Levin has died at 78, according to the AP. Levin wrote “the Nazi thriller ‘The Boys from Brazil,’” which “detailed a South American underground where the infamous Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele tried to clone Adolf Hitler.” The idea “came from a newspaper article on cloning, which suggested Hitler and Mozart as examples of the disparate possibilities for the new technology.” Stephen King said Levin was “the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels, he makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores.”
(Image) AP.
Here at Iconia, we assume only that Frida Kahlo is Jewish, so here’s the scoop on Levin. None of the obituaries mention that he was Jewish, but he is listed on Wikipedia’s List of Jewish American playwrights, and NNDB, “an intelligence aggregator that tracks the activities of people we have determined to be noteworthy, both living and dead,” calls him a Jew.
Alan Abbey Says
Of course Ira Levin was Jewish - read about him on In My Heart - http://inmyheart.co.il
Our website is designed to correct some of the things you are questioning. We found with a little effort interesting comments Levin made on his Jewishness (from a 1989 feature in the NYT about his play, “Cantorial,” about a haunted synagogue.
Nov 19th, 2007 at 7:50 am