Cosmo Landesman

Cosmo Landesman is a British-based American-born journalist and editor. With his wife Julie Burchill and friend Toby Young, he founded the magazine The Modern Review, which operated from 1991 to 1995 with Young as editor.

Early life and education

Cosmo Landesman is the older of two sons of Jay and Fran Landesman, a writer and impresario, and a lyricist and poet, from St. Louis and New York, respectively. He and his younger brother Miles Davis Landesman were both born in St. Louis. Their parents worked in music and theatre. They emigrated to London in 1964 with their two sons. By 1967, they embraced hippie culture, wearing beads and long hair. While Cosmo studied books more deeply, Miles became footloose, leaving their secondary school. Always more bookish, Cosmo envied his younger brother's willingness to plunge into the world; he left school in London at age 16 and experimented with the fringes of performance.[1]

Career and marriage

Cosmo Landesman went into journalism. As a young man, he joined the Groucho Club. He met and married Julie Burchill, also a writer. The couple became friends with Toby Young, a writer and editor. The three collaborated on founding The Modern Review in 1991, in which they intended to cover low-brow culture for the high-brows.

The founders argued how to proceed when circulation fell. The Landesmans separated after she had an affair with Charlotte Raven, then an intern. Landesman quit the UK in 1995 to work in New York City. He was one of the contributors to Vanity Fair's Cool Britannia issue in March 1997. He is the former dating columnist for The Sunday Times.

In 2008, Landesman published his memoir Starstruck, which largely concerns growing up with his theatre parents, described by Geordie Greig as "two wacky, middle-aged American egotists who arrived in ‘the land of the stiff upper lip’ and caused mayhem. Blind to their own blush-making toxicity, they were obsessed with being famous."[2] Landesman also came to terms with his parents, who viewed themselves as appropriate subjects for his book.[3]

Cosmo Landesman's son with Julie Burchill, Jack, committed suicide in late June 2015, aged 29, after suffering depression for many years.[4][5]

Bibliography
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Books
  • Landesman, Cosmo (2008). Starstruck : fame, failure, my family and me. London: Macmillan.

Articles
  • Landesman, Cosmo (4 January 2014). "Having it both ways : it's a stupid lie to say that we're all attracted to both men and women". The Spectator. 324 (9671): 18.

Critical studies and reviews of Landesman's work
Starstruck
gollark: Modern code is insufficiently idiomatic.
gollark: It shows you how idiomatic the code is based on its width.
gollark: You should probably run `cat` on it, as it turns out to, er, not have any exploitable security isuses either.
gollark: You are to finish mine too however.
gollark: While you still can.

References
  1. Cosmo Landesman, "My brother, my hero", The Guardian, 11 October 2008, accessed 16 January 2014
  2. Geordie Greig "Unruly children as parents", Review: Cosmo Landesman, Starstruck Archived 2008-12-04 at the Wayback Machine, The Spectator, 1 October 2008
  3. Christopher Sylvester Review: "Fame, my family and me": Cosmo Landesman, Star Struck, The Independent on Sunday, 23 November 2008
  4. Turner, Camilla (1 July 2015). "Julie Burchill speaks of grief after her son takes his life". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
  5. Topping, Alexandra (1 July 2015). "Julie Burchill mourns son, Jack, who killed himself this week". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
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