Lawrence Schiller

American photographer, producer, and director; Mailer's most important collaborator, beginning when the two met in November 1972. Schiller conceived and packaged Marilyn (1973) and went on to drive The Executioner's Song (1979) and Oswald's Tale (1995).

Lawrence Schiller, the photographer and producer, became Mailer’s most consequential collaborator after the two met in November 1972. Schiller conceived and produced the picture-biography Marilyn: A Biography (73.30, 1973) and assembled its photographs, and he later originated and produced two of Mailer’s largest nonfiction undertakings, The Executioner’s Song (1979) and Oswald’s Tale (1995). For The Executioner’s Song Schiller assembled the more than 15,000 pages of interviews from which Mailer built the book; Mailer described him as “almost like a line coach.” The 1972 meeting opened a partnership that ran the rest of Mailer’s career.

Mailer called him a recurring “skilled and wily colleague in interview and investigation.” For Oswald’s Tale (95.16) the two “labored side by side in Minsk and Moscow, and then again in Dallas” for six months in 1992–93, Schiller securing the access to Soviet files and witnesses that made the book possible — Mailer’s “American Tolstoy” partnership, as Schiller later called it.

In The Mailer Review

Listed by volume, with the contributor’s note as the journal printed it; the note is repeated only where its wording changed. Search the journal for all of them.

Vol. 2 (2008)

• “Boxer and the Rabbi,” 2 (2008): 60 — 2008 bibliography · article

Lawrence Schiller is an award-winning producer-director and nonfiction writer. Over the course of thirty-five years, he was a friend and colleague of Norman Mailer’s and collaborated with him on The Executioner’s Song, Oswald’s Tale, and other works of nonfiction.

Vol. 5 (2011)

• “They Were Perfect Together,” 5 (2011): 123 — 2011 bibliography · article

Lawrence Schiller was born in 1936 in Brooklyn, and grew up outside of San Diego, California. After attending Pepperdine College, he worked for Life magazine, Paris Match, The Sunday Times, Time, Newsweek, Stern and the Saturday Evening Post as a photojournalist. He published his first book, LSD, in 1966. Since then he has published eleven books, including W. Eugene Smith’s Minamata and Norman Mailer’s Marilyn. He collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce and again with Mailer on The Executioner’s Song and Oswald’s Tale. His own books became New York Times Bestsellers, which include American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Cape May Court House, and Into the Mirror. He has directed seven motion pictures and miniseries for television, which included The Executioner’s Song and Peter the Great, which won five Emmys. In 2008, after the death of Mailer, Schiller, a close friend of Mailer and a collaborator on five of Mailer’s works, was named Senior Advisor to the Norman Mailer Estate and is the President and Co-Founder of the Norman Mailer Center and the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, in Provincetown, MA. Mr. Schiller is a consultant to NBC news, Annie Liebovitz Studio and Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas and has written for The New Yorker, The Daily Beast and other publications.

Vol. 14 (2020)

• “The Executioner’s Song,” 14.1 (2020): 7 — 2020 bibliography · article

Lawrence Schiller worked for *Life *magazine, Paris Match, The Sunday Times, Time, Newsweek, Stern, and *The Saturday Evening Post *as a photojournalist in the second half of the 20th Century. He published his first book, LSD, in 1966. Since then he has published seventeen books, including W. Eugene Smith’s book *Minamata *and Norman Mailer’s Marilyn. He collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentleman, Lenny Bruce, and also with Norman Mailer on *The Executioner’s Song *as well as Oswald’s Tale. His own books that became national bestsellers and made the *New York Times *Bestseller list include American Tragedy, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, Cape May Court House, and *Into the Mirror. *He has directed seven motion pictures and minise ries for television; including *The Executioner’s Song *and Peter the Great, which won five Emmys.

Vol. 16 (2026) — forthcoming

• “The Executioner’s Song,” 16.1 (2026): 177 — forthcoming

Lawrence Schiller is a photographer, journalist, filmmaker, and author whose career has spanned six decades. His iconic images of Robert F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, and others appeared in Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, Paris Match, and the London Sunday Times. He directed portions of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and co-directed Peter the Great (1986), the Emmy Award–winning television miniseries. Perhaps nothing in Schiller’s career proved more remarkable than his collaboration with Norman Mailer — a friendship unique in American literary history. For nearly thirty-five years the two worked closely together on books including Marilyn (1973), The Faith of Graffiti (1974), Oswald’s Tale (1995), and The Executioner’s Song (1979), for which Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize. Schiller conceived of The Executioner’s Song, conducted much of its research and interviews, and secured exclusive access to its subject, Gary Gilmore; he later produced and directed the award-winning television miniseries based on the book, starring Tommy Lee Jones. Upon Mailer’s death in 2008, Schiller was named President and Co-Founder of the Norman Mailer Center and Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His historical archives reside at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

Related pages

• Marilyn (73.30) | The Executioner’s Song | Oswald’s Tale (95.16) | Carol Stevens | 1972 | 1995
• La Petite Bourgeoise (14.1) | The Fight (Taschen edition) (16.1)

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Last updated: 2026-10-24