Fran Landesman (born Frances Deitsch; October 21, 1927 – July 23, 2011) was an American lyricist and poet. She grew up in New York City and lived for years in St. Louis, Missouri, where her husband Jay Landesman operated the Crystal Palace nightclub. One of her best-known songs is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most".
Early life and education
She was born Frances Deitsch in New York City in 1927, Her mother was a journalist and a father was a dress manufacturer. Her brother, Sam Deitsch, founded and operated some neighborhood bars in St. Louis and, with his partner Ed Moose, later founded the Washington Square Bar and Grill in San Francisco.
Deitsch attended private schools through high school. For college, she studied at Temple University in Philadelphia and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. There she initially worked in the fashion industry, as her father did.
While in New York, Deitsch met writer Jay Landesman, the publisher of the short-lived Neurotica magazine, whom she married on July 15, 1950. They had two sons, Cosmo, who became a journalist, and Miles Davis Landesman, who became a musician and performance artist. Their nephew Rocco Landesman became a producer.
Professional career
Lyricist
She and her husband moved to St. Louis, Missouri, his home town. There Jay and his brother Fred Landesman started the Crystal Palace nightclub. This was a successful venture, attracting big-name acts and producing avant-garde theatre.
After listening to musicians and audiences when sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, Fran Landesman was inspired to write song lyrics, from 1952 onwards. One of her best-known is "Spring Can Really Hang You up the Most", her exploration of T. S. Eliot's "April is the cruelest month..." The Palace's pianist Tommy Wolf set her lyrics to music, and the song became a hit, leading to more Landesman–Wolf collaborations.
Wolf composed the melodies for the songs for The Nervous Set, a musical with a book by Jay Landesman and lyrics by Fran Landesman. It had a brief run on Broadway, and featured the songs, "Spring" and "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men". Molly Darling, a musical by Jay Landesman and Martin Quigley, was produced by the St. Louis MUNY Opera.
Fran Landesman also wrote the lyrics for a proposed musical version of A Walk on the Wild Side, adapted from the 1956 novel by Nelson Algren, known for his portrayal of down-and-outers. In 1960, she began writing with singer/pianist/composer Bob Dorough, who was brought to St. Louis by Tommy Wolf to play the lead in the musical. (The book was adapted as a film of the same name, released in 1962.)
The Landesman/Dorough song "Nothing Like You" was recorded by Miles Davis and included on his 1967 album Sorcerer. Their "Small Day Tomorrow" has been recorded by many singers, and was the title of Dorough's 2007 CD, which featured 12 songs with Landesman lyrics. One of those songs, "The Winds of Heaven," was originally recorded in 1968 by Jackie and Roy, and was also covered by The 5th Dimension.
In 1964 the Landesmans left St. Louis to move to London. She wrote lyrics for a number of well-known musicians (with an emphasis on jazz) such as Pat Smythe, Georgie Fame, Tom Springfield, Richard Rodney Bennett and Dudley Moore. She continued to collaborate with composers in the USA, most notably John Simon and Roy Kral.
She also wrote the lyrics for Joyce Adcock's musical Dearest Dracula, produced in 1965 at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Landesman met British composer Simon Wallace in 1994, and collaborated with him for the rest of her life. She and Wallace wrote some 300 songs in total. Theatre shows based on Landesman/Wallace songs include There's Something Irresistible in Down (1996), produced at the Young Vic by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company; Forbidden Games (1997) performed at the Ustinov Theatre in Bath, the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh, and the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival; and Queen of the Bohemian Dream (2007), produced at the Source Theatre in Washington D.C. The Decline of the Middle West (1995), performed at The Supper Club in Manhattan, also featured Landesman's lyrics.