Film critic and author Rex Reed, whose scathing reviews and provocative interviews in Hollywood established him as the bad boy of entertainment journalism, died Tuesday morning, his representative said. Hollywood Reporter. He was 87 years old.
The representative said that Reed died at his home in Manhattan after a short illness, according to his friend William Kapfer. Since 1970, he has lived in a New York apartment in the Dakota, which he bought for $30,000.
The Louisianian wrote film reviews and columns for New York Observer Since the newspaper’s inception in 1987 (he was laid off for a period in 2017 before being rehired), his final film review was Truth and betrayal In November.
Earlier, he spent 13 years as an art critic for New York Daily News And five with New York Post.
Reed was neither the usual critic nor the sleazy critic. With his nose and fashionable clothes, he was front and center in a profession in which most writers of his era were behind-the-scenes figures who avoided public exposure. His arrogance can be endearing or repulsive.
He was considered by some to be a representative of “New Journalism” – his 1966 article on the angry Ava Gardner Respected He was included in Tom Wolfe’s 1973 anthology Noteworthy – while others denounced him as a celebrity promoter. (He was a judge Gong show It’s the 1970s, after all.)
Demonstrating his cheerful personality, Reed portrayed Myron, who becomes Myra (Raquel Welch) after undergoing sex reassignment surgery in a dream sequence, in Myra Breckenridge (1970), adapted from Gore Vidal’s raunchy novel. But his participation did not prevent him from giving the film a negative review.
He also appeared on the big screen in the film Jules Dassin Rehearsal (1974), as in Superman (1978), with Laurence Olivier in Inchon (1981) and with Ryan O’Neal and Shelley Long Irreconcilable differences (1984).
In 1986 Reid and previously Entertainment tonight Reporter Bill Harris took over the aisle seats held by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert at the union In the movies program after the original pair left a similar show produced by Disney.
He was notorious for name-dropping and gossiping – and a regular at it The Dick Cavett Show and Tonight show In the seventies — Reid delighted in interviewing and profiling actresses, especially Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, Angela Lansbury, and Melina Mercuri.
“It’s the old shows that interest me most,” he once said. Newsweek. “Nothing annoys me more than those girls with short skirts who don’t have anything on their minds.”
(After Gardner complained about the article he had written about her, Reid responded: “Every word of it is true, and it was written in as seductive a manner as you can when you write something when the subject matter does not permit you to ask questions or take notes or give any appearance of a gracious interview. She was also quite drunk.”)
Although Reid was never accused of being a populist, he was highly critical of filmmakers whom he viewed as over-praising or wearing the emperor’s new clothes. He wasn’t a fan of David Lynch, for example. Blue velvethe wrote, was “one of the most ridiculous films ever made.” “It should score high marks with the kind of patients who like to smell dirty socks and pull off butterfly wings, but there’s nothing here for the sane public.”
Recently, he has been criticized for the way he described Melissa McCarthy, Renée Zellweger and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in his reviews.
He also sparked controversy at the 1993 Academy Awards when he claimed that host Jack Palance mistakenly chose the wrong person for Best Supporting Actress, naming him. My cousin VinnyMarisa Tomei. Reid was defamed, but he stuck to his story, and embraced a “massive cover-up” in late 1997.
Rex Taylor Reed was born on October 2, 1938 in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, Jimmy, worked on oil rigs in and around the Gulf of Mexico, and the family moved frequently.
At Louisiana State University, Reed was editor of the literary magazine and a columnist, critic, and editorial writer for the campus newspaper. He also won a national short story competition as a senior before graduating in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
Distraught by life in the South, Reed discovered that the only way to escape his cramped childhood was to write his way out. Apply for a writing job at New York Times But he was only offered the position of copy clerk, which he declined.
So, he supported his sporadic book sales by performing as a jazz singer on a local TV show, working as a pie cook, selling records at Bloomingdale’s and acting in summer stock in Butte, Montana.
He moved to New York and got a publicity gig at 20th Century Fox but was laid off in a round of budget cuts that he said were related to… Cleopatra disaster.
In Europe with friends, Reed made his way to the 1965 Venice Film Festival and interviewed Buster Keaton and Jean-Paul Belmondo. He got $125 from times for Keaton’s article and $150 from Herald Tribune for Belmondo’s story, which ignited his career.
Reid has been the author of eight books. The first four sets of profiles were in 1968 Do you sleep naked?1969 Talks in Raw1974 People are crazy here And 1977 Valentine’s Day and marriage. Nora Ephron said of the first book: “It is impossible to read this book without wondering how Reed gets his subjects to say the things they do.”
Reed was also a novelist, with his first effort coming in 1986 Personal influenceswas optioned for an NBC miniseries. As a fan of Broadway musicals, he wrote liner notes for performers such as Liza Minnelli, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé, and Barbara Cook.
In 1993, he was inducted (along with James Carville and Supreme Court Justice John Minor Wisdom) into the Louisiana Hall of Fame.
Reid never married. “I have no relationships, except friends,” he told TV. times In 2018. “I don’t know, love isn’t something I’m really good at. I think people are afraid of people with opinions.”
