He was the executive producer, writer, and host of the Bravo cable television series Inside the Actors Studio, which debuted in 1994.

Known for writing the Beat Generation chronicle The Holy Barbarians, Lawrence was a graphic designer, a columnist for the Jewish Daily Forward, and a publicity director for a movie theater.

[3] In an interview with Vanity Fair, Lipton talked about his time in Paris in the 1950s, when he worked for about a year as a pimp.

[11] On the Today show, Lipton clarified that he had worked as a beneficent maque in the regulated prostitution business.

[3][14][15] From 1952 to 1962, Lipton started in The Guiding Light, playing the role of Dr. Dick Grant and eventually becoming head writer.

[14] He wrote for several soap operas: Another World, The Edge of Night, The Best of Everything, Return to Peyton Place and Capitol.

He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's 1953 film, The Big Break, a crime drama.

[17] John Chapman wrote in the NY Daily News that the show “is delicious bathtub gin.

[20] A group of 234 small investors tried to keep the show from closing by parading in front of the theater and sought an injunction,[21] but the NY Supreme Court ruled in favor of the producer.

In 2003, a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Mike Myers and others) renewed interest in the show.

[25] The dust jacket biography for the first edition of Exaltation said his activities included fencing, swimming, and equestrian pursuits and that he had written two Broadway productions.

He played "himself" as Brain Wash, interviewer of the monster Eva's acting teacher in the Paris-Vietnam animated film Igor.

In the early 1990s, Lipton was inspired by Bernard Pivot and sought to create a three-year educational program for actors that would be a distillation of what he had learned in the 12 years of his own intensive studies.

Lipton stated in interviews that he was a pilot, certified in Airplane Single Engine Land planes.