3 weeks ago
Rex Reed, 1 of nan astir wide known, influential and biting movie critics of nan caller activity ushered into prominence by Pauline Kael successful nan 1960s, died today, May 12, astatine his location successful Manhattan pursuing a short illness. He was 87.
His decease was confirmed by longtime friend William Kapfer, who noted that Reed died “surrounded by his closest loved ones.”
Reed, whose stylishly written movie reviews, personage profiles and interviews pinch Hollywood and Broadway stars were featured successful specified publications arsenic The New York Times, GQ, Esquire, Vogue and, astir recently, nan New York Observer, was a ubiquitous beingness connected talk shows passim nan 1960s and ’70s, prized by hosts for illustration Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett for his wit and candor.
In a telling sample of his quotes collected for his obituary successful The New York Times, Reed could beryllium some worshipful and scathing. In 1968 he said nan aging Bette Davis was breathtaking capable “to make nan latest younker idols astir arsenic absorbing arsenic a withered logarithm.” Broadway’s Gwen Verdon was 1 of those performers “rare arsenic bluish butterflies, who transportation astir their ain lightning.”
Not each of his subjects sewage disconnected truthful easy. “If location is thing much excruciating than sitting done a Michelangelo Antonioni film, it’s sitting done a Michelangelo Antonioni interview,” he wrote successful 1967. He called Peter Lawford a Rat Pack “court jester” pinch constricted intelligence, and drew nan ire of Frank Sinatra erstwhile he said girl Nancy Sinatra looked for illustration a “pizza waitress.” After he wrote that a drunk Ava Gardner quipped astir Sinatra’s matrimony to Mia Farrow, “Hah! I ever knew Frank would extremity up successful furniture pinch a boy,” Gardner called “a boy of a bitch is either astatine your feet aliases astatine your throat.”
Reed’s writings were collected successful galore books, including his notoriously titled first, Do You Sleep successful nan Nude?, nan mobility an illustration of nan benignant of query he designed to provoke noteworthy responses from his question and reply subjects.
Even successful nan second portion of his career, astatine nan play newspaper New York Observer, his writings mislaid nary of their sting, and so often seemed for illustration an unappetizing leftover from an era erstwhile sour individual swipes were much tolerated. He ascribed nan Oscar triumph by deaf Children of a Lesser God actor Marlee Matlin to a “pity vote” and described Melissa McCarthy arsenic “tractor-sized” and a “hippo.”
Reed’s victims relished a chance astatine payback erstwhile nan writer tried his manus astatine acting successful nan atrocious 1970 movie adjustment of Gore Vidal’s caller Myra Breckinridge. He would later look successful amended films, but it was Breckinridge – a movie that routinely lands of Worst Films Ever lists and was disavowed by Vidal himself – that made headlines. Time mag wrote astatine nan clip that “Myra Breckinridge is astir arsenic funny arsenic a child molester. It is an reproach to intelligence, an affront to sensibility and an abomination to nan eye.” Both Reed and costar Raquel Welch were pilloried for their capacity arsenic nan aforesaid characteristic earlier and aft what would now beryllium called gender-affirming surgery.
In keeping pinch his ain standards, Reed, too, panned Myra Breckinridge. It was, he wrote, “a train wreck.”
