He died in Camarillo, California.

https://www.independent.com/2024/10/21/in-memoriam-leonard-russel-lamensdorf-1930-2024/
(with photo)

In Memoriam
By Lacy David | Mon Oct 21, 2024 | 1:12pm

The day before he died at age 94, while Len Lamensdorf was being treated
in the ER for heart failure, he was also fielding offers, through his
suddenly savvy nurses, from production companies in Hollywood. They were
waging a bidding war to option Len’s most recent screenplay. It was the
2024 update of his ’70s movie, Cornbread, Earl and Me, which was, and
still is, revered in the Black community.

Born in Chicago, Len finished high school and college on the same day.
After graduating with honors from the University of Chicago Law School,
and Harvard University, his first career was law. He even pled cases
before the Supreme Court. Later, Len built and leased shopping centers.
He was also a prolific, prize-winning author and member of our Writers
in the Trenches group that met for lunch, at Harry’s Plaza Café, in
Loreto Plaza, every other Thursday.

Len always arrived for lunch in his classic, silver Mercedes sedan. And
he always wore his perfect, crisp, pink, button-down, oxford cloth
shirt, which his wife had ironed for him.

While the rest of us checked the specials at Harry’s, our waiter never
gave Len a menu. The server knew that our colleague would order a tuna
salad sandwich on whole wheat, eat half, and take the rest home to his
wife’s cat.

As we sat around the table discussing our victories, latest ideas,
publishers, pitches, and devastating rejection letters, we shared
resources and encouraged each other to keep on going. I remember Len’s “keep goings” as some of the most sincere.

He was our token Republican. But we loved him anyway.

A constant self-promoter, Len could be found each year in his booth at
the Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival, as well as the Los Angeles
Times Festival of Books.

His body of work includes Kane’s World, published by Simon & Schuster,
and In the Blood, from Delacorte. He also wrote The Ballad of Billy Lee:
George Washington’s Favorite Slave, which became a powerful one-man show
that Santa Barbara audiences loved.

I miss his almost-daily phone calls during the year before he died. He
was relentless in his determination to get Cornbread 2 produced while he
was still here. And although there probably aren’t any Hollywood talent agents in Heaven, I’d bet my last laptop that our colleague has sold the rights to his screenplay and is sending his trademark two-hour delivery
FedEx packages, with his script enclosed, to Laurence Fishburne and
Bronny James, to play the leads.

Born June 22, 1930, in Chicago, to Maurice and Gertrude Lamensdorf, who
were in the schmata business, Len was married three times. His last and
best wife was Erica Mamis.

He had two children. His daughter, Lauren, died while still quite young.
He is survived by his wife, Erica; a son, Mark; and five grandchildren.

Len once said: “When asked what I do, I sometimes say, ‘I am a lawyer by profession, a regional shopping center owner-builder by trade, and a
writer by choice.”

To celebrate Len’s long, creative lifetime, and the work he left behind, order a tuna sandwich on whole wheat for lunch at Harry’s. Then raise
your glass to good writing.

Bye, Len. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for being you.

_______________________________________________



https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/lhj7ECJipMs/m/mFfQCH8nBQAJ
(birthday post from 2020 - it includes book covers, a video, and his
website)

Excerpt:

About "The Crouching Dragon":

"In 1959, William Montreux, 14, lives with his mother and abusive
father in Bonville, France, near the site of the Normandy invasion in
1944. On the hill above the village is a rundown castle known as the
"Crouching Dragon." On occasion, unusual sounds and smoke come from
it. Willi is drawn to the mysterious structure and eventually meets
its reclusive resident, Roger Guiscard. From him, the teen learns that
his mother and Guiscard worked for the French resistance during the
war. Other students are drawn to the castle and embark on a
restoration project that includes displaying collections of World War
II weapons as well as medieval spears, swords, and armor held within. Simultaneously there is a cattle-rustling operation in the area and
the mayor blames Willi for the missing animals."

Excerpt about the adult novel "Gino, the Countess and Chagall":

"Fresh on the heels of winning the 2000 Benjamin Franklin Award for
Young Adult Fiction for The Crouching Dragon (a Harry-Potterish bit of
magic realism set in a haunted French castle), comes a slightly more
grounded use of European art, amour, architecture, and aristocracy in
Gino, a sturdy soufflé of a Tuscan-rags-to-Parisian-riches tale of the guileless, itinerant artist who grows from a frightened soldier in
1943 to a liberating genius of art, and is heralded by André Malraux,
Picasso, and Chagall in a 1969 induction ceremony of the French
Pantheon..."

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