Landau was born to a Jewish family and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Rose and Harry Rudolph and sister to Mendy Rudolph. She received her B.A. in Education from Wilkes University. In 1948, Landau moved to New York City, where she served as production coordinator for Phillips H. Lord, on such popular radio shows as Gangbusters and Mr. District Attorney, among others. In 1953, Landau joined Ely Landau in his start-up companyNational Telefilm Associates which owned television station WNTA Channel 13 in NYC, considered the "fourth TV network" in the early days of television. Until 1961, Edie Landau served as the company’s Executive Vice President, overseeing the station’s original programming including the anthology drama series The Play of the Week,The Mike Wallace Show, The David Susskind Show, Open End, The Bishop Sheen Show, and One Night Stand, among others. In 1962, the Landaus produced Long Day's Journey Into Night, an adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play directed by Sidney Lumet, which won Best Actor awards for all its leading actors at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Katharine Hepburn as Best Actress. This was followed in 1964 by The Pawnbroker, The Madwoman of Chaillot also with Hepburn, and the documentary . The film about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. played in 663 theaters as a one-night benefit for King's charities, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in 1999 was added to the National Film Registry. In 1973, the Landaus launched the American Film Theatre, bringing two seasons of outstanding stage plays to the motion picture screen as part of a subscription series. The fourteen movies of the American Film Theatre included Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, Pinter's The Homecoming, and Robert Shaw's The Man in the Glass Booth.
Later career
From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Landau produced such films as Hopscotch, Beatlemania, Chaim Potok’sThe Chosen, Robert Ludlum’s The Holcroft Covenant, in addition to a number of award-winning productions for HBO, including The Deadly Game, Separate Tables, Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson and The Christmas Wife. In 1982, while continuing her producing career, Landau secured a secured a Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, and became a member of the State Bar of California. In 1989, Landau also began operating Nannies Unlimited Agency, an exclusive Beverly Hills placement service with clientele including numerous celebrities of the entertainment world. In 2014, she published an original volume of poems, Smiles for Seniors: And Anyone Else Who Can Poke Fun at Themselves.
Personal life
In addition to the two young sons her husband brought to the marriage, the Landaus had three children together: Jon Landau, Tina Landau, and Kathy Landau.
