[4][1] He is the son of Mildred "Millie" Schroeder, a Ziegfeld girl, and Bert Lahr, an actor and comedian most famous for portraying the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
[8] Lahr wrote:On stage, Dad was sensational; in private he was sensationally taciturn: a brooding absent presence, to be encountered mostly in his bedroom chair at his desk, turned away from us, with his blue Sulka bathrobe knotted under his pot belly.
At home, Dad was depressed, bewildered, hidden; in front of the paying customers, however, he was buoyant and truthful—a bellowing, cavorting genius who could reduce audiences to a level of glee so intense that from the wings I once saw a man stuff a handkerchief in his mouth to stop laughing.
[9] His childhood was also filled with access to Hollywood and Vaudeville celebrities who were his father's friends, such as Eddie Foy Jr., Buster Keaton, Groucho Marx, and Ethel Merman.
[11][12][6] He has also written for British Vogue, BroadwayWorld, the Daily Mail, Esquire, The Guardian, The Nation, The New Indian Express, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Slate, and The Telegraph.
[16][2] In 1992, when he was fifty years old, Lahr became a staff writer and a senior drama critic at The New Yorker magazine.
He also began reviewing regional and international theater, expanding the magazine's coverage beyond Broadway for the first time.
[17] Throughout his time at The New Yorker, Lahr profiled more than forty actors, including Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, Ingmar Bergman, Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Bob Hope, Eddie Izzard, Tony Kushner, David Mamet, Arthur Miller, Helen Mirren, Mira Nair, Mike Nichols, and Al Pacino.
[8] Eight years later, he finished the biography called Notes on a Cowardly Lion, the week before his father died.
[2] His biographies include the Australian comedian Barry Humphries, Joe Orton, and Frank Sinatra.
[11] In 1994, Lahr published an expose in The New Yorker detailing the behavior of Lady Maria St. Just, the literary executor of playwright Tennessee Williams's estate.
[23][21][6] Lahr's profile helped Lyle Leverich publish Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams after "a five-year legal stranglehold" by St.
[28] In July 1965, Lahr became engaged to Anthea Mander of Wightwick Manor in Wolverhampton whom he met while they both were attending Oxford University.
[18][10] Rather than maintaining a residence in New York, he rented the maid's room of producer Margo Lion's apartment.
[18] In 1988, Lahr began a relationship with New York-born ex-pat actress Connie Booth, co-writer and a cast member of Fawlty Towers and ex-wife of John Cleese.