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David Leddick in The Huffington Post

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."

01

My Red Hat: A Better World Is Shaping Up for the 21st Century

When I was 14 I got a red hat for Christmas. It was a hat I'd longed to have and never thought I would have -- too girly for boys at that time.

 

It was made of red corduroy that turned up all around like a sailor's hat and could... <read more>

02

Being Gay in the World of Mad, Mad Men: What It Was Really Like

 

Are you watching Mad Men? You have not been getting a truly balanced view of what it was like to be gay in advertising in that time period.

 

I was there, as a junior writer, then a senior writer, then a group head through the 1950s, and then a creative... <read more>

03

Over Sixty? You're A Sextennial! You're a New Maverick!

Did you think homoeroticism in art was just a late-20th-century phenomenon, that artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and many others were something new under the sun?

 

When the European publishing house Bruno Gmünder asked me to create a new book of art featuring male nudes, for my introduction I... <read more>

04

05

Do You Hate Homoerotic Art? Is It the Art, or Is It You?

Did you think homoeroticism in art was just a late-20th-century phenomenon, that artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Bruce Weber, and many others were something new under the sun?

 

When the European publishing house Bruno Gmünder asked me to create a new book of art featuring male nudes, for my introduction I... <read more>

 
They Called Me a Slut at 82

"The 80-year-old slut." That's what a friend calls me. "82," I say, correcting him. "82." We have to completely rethink what age numbers stand for.

 

Yes, I am 82, and yes, I have a lover who is well under 30, and yes, I have an excellent sex life... <read more>

 
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