18 Facts About Laura Albert

Laura Albert grew up in Brooklyn Heights, the child of two educators who divorced when she was young.

Laura Albert left her mother's care as a teenager, spent time in a group home for troubled kids, and took fiction classes at the New School in Manhattan while taking part in the early-80s punk scene in the nearby East Village.

The character of Jeremiah "Terminator" LeRoy, as presented by Laura Albert, was an underage, gay, male prostitute who started working in Appalachian truck stops while still a boy.

When meeting face-to-face, Laura Albert would adopt the additional persona of Emily "Speedie" Frasier, a well-travelled woman with a Cockney accent who purported to be JT's friend and roommate.

Savannah Knoop stopped making public appearances as JT LeRoy and Laura Albert has not published under that name since.

Laura Albert signed a contract giving Antidote an option for the film rights to Sarah in the name of JT LeRoy.

Laura Albert refused and they sued Albert for fraud, alleging that the option contract was void.

Laura Albert was ordered to pay $350,000 in legal fees to Antidote.

Laura Albert wrote "Dreams of Levitation," Sharif Hamza's short film for NOWNESS, and worked as a writer for the television series Deadwood.

Laura Albert collaborated with director and playwright Robert Wilson for the international exhibition of his VOOM video portraits, and with the catalog for his "Frontiers: Visions of the Frontier" at Institut Valencia d'Art Modern.

In 2016, Laura Albert starred in a documentary about JT LeRoy that premiered at Sundance, titled Author: The JT LeRoy Story directed by Jeff Feuerzeig.

Laura Albert has taught at Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia and the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and has lectured with artist Jasmin Lim at Artists' Television Access with SF Camerawork's Chuck Mobley, in conjunction with a window installation about her work.

Laura Albert was photographed by Steven Klein for QVEST magazine and by Kai Regan for his "Reckless Endangerment" at ALIFE; she has done fashion shoots for Christian Lacroix and John Galliano.

Laura Albert profiled Juergen Teller for the 2003 Citibank Photography Prize catalogue; and published her reminiscence of Lou Reed in The Forward.

Laura Albert was a catalog contributor for the "Blind Cut" exhibition at New York's Marlborough Chelsea and collaborated with Williamsburg band Japanther, releasing a limited-edition cassette under the name True Love in a Large Room, with original artwork by Winston Smith.

Laura Albert has written for dot429, the world's largest LGBTA professional network, and been an invited speaker at their annual conferences in New York; her talks and lectures about gender variance and transgender issues include dot429, Bomb Magazine, Ireland's Mindfield Literary Stage, and the Transgression Symposium at Utah Valley University.

Actress Laura Dern portrayed Albert in the 2018 biographical drama JT LeRoy, based on Savannah Knoop's memoir.

Documentaries about Laura Albert include Author: The JT LeRoy Story directed by Jeff Feuerzeig, and The Cult of JT LeRoy directed by Marjorie Sturm.