Background
Lawrence Julian Schiller was born on December 28, 1936, in New York City, New York, but was raised in San Diego. He is the son of Isidour and Jean (Liebowitz) Schiller. A childhood accident left him with impaired vision in one eye.
24255 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90263, USA
Pepperdine College
Dennis Hopper, L.M. Kit Carson, and Lawrence Schiller in The American Dreamer (1971)
Tommy Lee Jones and Lawrence Schiller in The Executioner's Song (1982)
Vittorio Storaro and Lawrence Schiller in Peter the Great (1986)
Lawrence Schiller in The Executioner's Song (1982)
Norman Mailer and Lawrence Schiller in The Executioner's Song (1982)
Lawrence Schiller in Peter the Great (1986)
(Into the Mirror is the shocking story of FBI Special Agen...)
Into the Mirror is the shocking story of FBI Special Agent Robert P. Hanssen, the master spy who singlehandedly created the greatest breach of security in the history of our country.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060508094/?tag=2022091-20
2002
(The author of the bestselling biographies The Lives of Jo...)
The author of the bestselling biographies The Lives of John Lennon and Elvis explores the tumultuous life of one of the most controversial comics who ever lived. Lenny Bruce's life is reconstructed in dazzling sequences that capture his genius in the same lingo and rhythm, shtick comedy and junkie surrealism that characterized his imagination.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C1LMQ2Q/?tag=2022091-20
2013
(Jack Hart enjoys a wonderful life with his lawyer wife an...)
Jack Hart enjoys a wonderful life with his lawyer wife and young daughter, but when his old girlfriend Lisa comes to town, events are set in motion that threaten to tear Jack and his family apart.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076H8N5N5/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Dr. Henry Lee, the noted forensic scientist recalls past ...)
Dr. Henry Lee, the noted forensic scientist recalls past cases in a series that revisits crime scenes and includes comments from investigators, prosecutors and defense attorneys.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MQO93DG/?tag=2022091-20
2004
filmmaker journalist Photographer producer screenwriter writer
Lawrence Julian Schiller was born on December 28, 1936, in New York City, New York, but was raised in San Diego. He is the son of Isidour and Jean (Liebowitz) Schiller. A childhood accident left him with impaired vision in one eye.
Schiller received his education at Pepperdine College in Los Angeles.
Schiller started his career as a photographer. Even while attending Pepperdine College, his pictures had already appeared in Life, Sport, Playboy, Glamour, and the Saturday Evening Post. Schiller’s interests and ambitions soon developed into a profession in print journalism, documenting major stories for glossy magazines all over the world, including Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, Paris Match, Stern, and the London Sunday Times.
In November 1963, while on assignment for the Saturday Evening Post, he reached Dallas in time to photograph Lee Harvey Oswald. Later, he landed Jack Ruby’s final interview. After extensive interviews with the widow of Lenny Bruce, Schiller and the writer Albert Goldman published Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce (1974); and, with the photographer W. Eugene Smith, he produced Minamata (1975), the epic pictorial chronicle of mercury poisoning in Japan.
Schiller moved into motion pictures by directing a portion of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and Lady Sings the Blues (1972), with Diana Ross. He also directed the Oscar-winning documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1972); The American Dreamer (1971), a film on Dennis Hopper; and, after obtaining extraordinary cooperation from the Kremlin, executive produced and co-directed Peter the Great (1986), the Emmy Award-winning television mini-series starring Maximilian Schell, Vanessa Redgrave, and Laurence Olivier.
Perhaps nothing in Schiller’s career proved more remarkable, though, than his collaboration with Norman Mailer — a friendship unique in American literary history. For nearly thirty-five years the two worked closely together, on books including Marilyn (1973), The Faith of Graffiti (1974), Oswald’s Tale (1995), Into the Mirror (2002), and The Executioner’s Song (1979), for which Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize. Schiller, who did much of the legwork, interviews, and research for Executioner’s Song, outmaneuvered numerous other reporters to gain exclusive access to the book’s subject, Gary Gilmore, and went on to produce and direct the award-winning television miniseries based upon it, starring Tommy Lee Jones.
Similarly, Schiller managed to embed himself into the so-called “Dream Team” defending O. J. Simpson, and with his unique insider’s perspective on the case, co-wrote (with James Willwerth) the New York Times best-selling American Tragedy (1996).
Following the death of Norman Mailer in 2007, Schiller was named senior advisor to the Mailer estate, and is president and co-founder of the Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has been a consultant to NBC News and the Annie Liebovitz Studios and has written for The New Yorker, The Daily Beast, and other publications.
Currently, Schiller lives in New York and Los Angeles, working as a freelance writer.
Schiller’s career has been controversial. In addition to documenting the LSD culture during the 1960s, he conducted the last interview with Jack Ruby before he died, using a tape recorder hidden inside a briefcase. Before that 1967 interview, Schiller had secured the world magazine rights for Bob Jackson’s photograph of Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald, President Kennedy’s assassin. Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize for the picture, but Schiller has the original print framed at his home.
(The author of the bestselling biographies The Lives of Jo...)
2013(In Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Lawrence Schiller thorou...)
1999(Into the Mirror is the shocking story of FBI Special Agen...)
2002(Jack Hart enjoys a wonderful life with his lawyer wife an...)
1992(This film captures world champion skier Yuichiro Miura in...)
1975(A married couple from Poland emigrates to the U.S., but t...)
1985(Dr. Henry Lee, the noted forensic scientist recalls past ...)
2004Schiller is a member of the Director’s Guild of America and Screen Actor’s Guild.
During his life, Schiller was divorced three times. His current wife's name is Kathy Amerman, who is also a photographer. The couple married on February 15, 1997, and has 5 children, Suzanne, Marc, Howard, Anthony and Cameron.