Ilene Beckerman

Ilene Beckerman (born 1935) is an American writer, who was not published until she was 60 years old, and a former advertising agency executive. She is best known for her first book Love, Loss, and What I Wore, published in 1995, which in 2008 became a successful play written by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron based on her book.

Early life

Ilene Beckerman was born in 1935,^[1] and grew up in Manhattan in the 1940s and 1950s.^[2]

Career

Beckerman did not start her career as a writer until she was almost 60 years old, after having risen to become vice-president of an advertising agency.^[3][2] Her journalism has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Ladies' Home Journal.^[3]

In 1995, at the age of 60, Beckerman published Love, Loss, and What I Wore, which Publishers Weekly called a " "captivating little pictorial autobiography for adults ... a wry commentary on the pressures women constantly face to look good".^[2][1]

In 2011, she published, The Smartest Woman I Know, an account of her life with her grandmother, Ettie Goldberg, who she lived with after her mother died.^[4]

Selected publications

• Love, Loss, and What I Wore (1995)^[3]
• The Smartest Woman I Know (2011)^[3]
• Mother of the Bride^[3]
• Makeovers at the Beauty Counter of Happiness^[3]
• What We Do for Love^[3]

Personal life

When she was 12 years old, her mother died, and she went to live in Manhattan with her grandparents, who ran a candy store on Madison Avenue between 64th and 65th Streets.^[4]

In 1955, aged 20 years, Beckerman married her Boston sociology professor, 17 years her senior.^[2] The marriage was short-lived and ended in divorce. She married again, and had six children, one of whom died in infancy, and eventually divorced.^[2]

Beckerman lives in Bethlehem Township, New Jersey, with her husband Stanley.^[4]

References

This page was last edited on 23 July 2023, at 05:32