MARCH 12 • 2020 | 55
An Interviewer Both
Sympathetic and Probing —
with Detroit Roots
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
W
hen I turned the
tables on famed
show business
interviewer James Lipton,
he revealed his Detroit con-
nections.
Lipton, who died of blad-
der cancer March
2, 2020, at age 93,
freely answered
questions about
hosting the
Emmy-winning
program Inside
the Actors Studio,
other profession-
al experiences
and his Detroit
upbringing in
2007, the year he
released his memoir Inside
Inside.
“You cannot teach talent,
but you can teach tech-
nique,” Lipton said in that
interview. “The purpose
of technique is to free the
talent.”
Inside the Actors Studio,
which originally aired on
Bravo and then Ovation,
reached some 94 million
American homes between
1994 and 2018.
Long before celebrities,
from comedian Andy
Cohen to actor-writer-direc-
tor Jeff Daniels, could tweet
about how much they liked
being on his show, Lipton
revealed his work routine to
the JN. He said he took two
weeks to prepare for each
interview, being prompted
by notations on cards and
intending to keep discus-
sions focused on craft. He
had a knack for getting
celebrities to reveal personal
revelations.
Lipton had
demonstrated
abilities in read-
ing and creative
writing before
attending Detroit
schools. He was
encouraged
by his parents,
Lawrence Lipton,
a beat poet who
wrote for the Jewish
Daily Forward, and
Betty Weinberg Lipton, a
teacher in Highland Park —
although father Lawrence
walked out on the family
when James was a child.
“When I was a child, I
would walk to the Fisher
Theatre every Saturday
afternoon and watch a
movie,” he said about
the venue that became
the starting point for the
Nederlander theater net-
work. “I didn’
t know the
Nederlander family then,
but I got to know some of
the family members very
well in New York. I told
them what a profound
influence the family had on
my life.”
Lipton, who attended
Central High School and
Wayne State University,
had his first major acting
job on The Lone Ranger
radio program produced in
Michigan. After moving to
New York, he studied acting
with Stella Adler, became a
soap opera actor and pro-
duced television projects.
Venturing into writing for
the stage, Lipton collaborat-
ed on the musical Sherry!
with Central High friend
Laurence Rosenthal, who
married his melodies with
Lipton’
s lyrics and book. As
dean of the Pace University
Actors Studio Drama School
in New York City, Lipton
helped develop a master’
s
degree initiative with a sem-
inar that morphed into the
TV series.
The successes in Lipton’
s
life contrast with early
struggles caused by his
father’
s departure.
“I don’
t know why my
parents distanced them-
selves from Judaism, but
they were both atheists,” he
said. “I’
ve always been like
my parents [in that way].
I hope that doesn’
t offend
anyone. I know so many
people who are religious
and do many good things
and for whom I have the
deepest respect.”
Lipton is survived by his
wife, former model and real
estate executive Kedakai
Turner Lipton.
James Lipton
KARNI W.
FRANK, M.D.
(née Spitz) died
Feb. 27, 2020, at
Union Memorial
Hospital following
emergency cardiovascular sur-
gery. She was 83 years old.
She and her husband, Dr.
Robert N. Frank, had been
visiting Baltimore from
Bloomfield Hills, where they
lived, to visit their daughter.
Dr. Frank was an accom-
plished physician and the
daughter of a remarkable fam-
ily. Her parents, Drs. Siegfried
and Anna Spitz, fled Germany
in the early days of Nazi rule
with their son, Werner, and
joined other Jewish settlers
in what was then Palestine,
where her father rebuilt his
medical practice, treating Jews
and Arabs alike.
Karni, who was born in
1936, often found the children
of Palestinian patients playing
on her bed while her father
treated their parents. In the
1950s, after the re-establish-
ment of a democratic West
Germany, the family returned,
settling in Frankfurt am Main.
There, Dr. Frank attended
medical school alongside
her mother at the Johannes
Gutenberg School of Medicine
and later received a research
degree from Johann Wolfgang
Goethe University. She trained
in pathology at the University
of Maryland, Baltimore and
then in ophthalmic pathology
at the Armed Forces Institute
of Pathology in Washington,
D.C. It was there that she
met Dr. Robert Frank, who
was completing a residen-
cy in ophthalmology at the
Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns
Hopkins. (It was, ironically,
a blind date.) They were wed
continued on page 56
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