David Leddick

David Leddick is an author, playwright and actor.

 

He was born in 1930, and after graduating from the University of Michigan served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. He was at Bikini Atoll during the hydrogen bomb testing. Leddick moved to New York in the 1950s, and was a ballet dancer. He was with the Metropolitan Opera where he appeared onstage with great Divas such as Maria Callas.Leddick has worked in advertising as the Worldwide Creative Director for Revlon in New York, and as International Creative Director for L'Oreal in Paris, through the 1970s and 1980s. He created some of the era's most iconic beauty campaigns including the groundbreaking TV commercial for Jontue fragrance.

 

 

He began a new career at the age of 65 as a writer, creating male nude photography books and writing novels. His first novel, "My Worst Date," was the most reviewed first novel from St. Martin's Press.Resuming his theater career at the age of 70, he has written the scripts and lyrics for a number of musicals and plays he has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and South America.

 

 

Now in his 80s and living in Miami Beach, Leddick wants to write about reporting back from what he calls the "uncharted territory of aging." He considers living in his 80s to be the new late middle-age: "After romantic relationships and living life to the fullest through my 70s, I feel like I have gone out into an unknown frontier from which no one has reported back.

 

"I call everyone who is over 65 a Sextennial, and we are all going to share a new, rich experience in this last third of our lives - a productive and exciting time which has never existed historically before."