NEW YORK (AP) – Rex Reed, the prominent and outspoken film critic and journalist known for his longtime column in The New York Observer, died Tuesday. He was 87.<\/p>\n
Reed died at his Manhattan home after a short illness, publicist Sean Katz said on behalf of Reed\u2019s friend William Kapfer.<\/p>\n
In a career spanning more than six decades, Reed became one of the most well-known voices in cultural criticism. He published eight books, acted in movies (playing himself in \u201cSuperman\u201d), counted movie stars like Angela Lansbury as friends and often found himself in the spotlight for controversial comments. Most infamous among them was his assertion that Marlee Matlin\u2019s Oscar win for \u201cChildren of a Lesser God\u201d was a pity vote, and, decades later, comments about Melissa McCarthy\u2019s weight and size in a review for \u201cIdentity Thief.\u201d He also perpetuated a false conspiracy theory that Marisa Tomei\u2019s 1992 Oscar win for \u201cMy Cousin Vinny\u201d was fake.<\/p>\n
When it came to the movies, he had a reputation for being a bit of a crank as well, often bemoaning the old days and feeling out of step with the next generation of film critics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like just as many films as I dislike,\u201d Reed told The New York Times in 2018. \u201cBut I think we\u2019re drowning in mediocrity. I just try as hard as I can to raise the level of consciousness. It\u2019s so hard to get people to see good films.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 2, 1938, and spent his childhood moving around the South for his father\u2019s job. He told the New York Times in 2018 that his origin story as a \u201ccontroversial writer\u201d began in the eighth grade, when he started writing a gossip column in the school paper and plotted his exodus to a more cosmopolitan life.<\/p>\n
One of his first jobs was in the publicity department at 20th Century Fox, during the making of \u201cCleopatra,\u201d but he was laid off due to budget cuts. The way he told it, he faked his way into film journalism while gallivanting around Europe with friends and looking for ways to fund a ticket home, including writing a Buster Keaton story for The New York Times. In the 1960s and \u201870s, he established himself as an in-demand magazine and newspaper writer and became a television staple, appearing on \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d with Johnny Carson and \u201cThe Dick Cavett Show.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of his most famous profiles was of Ava Gardner in 1967 for The New York Times (\u201cThere Is Nothing Like This Dame\u201d), which was included in his collection \u201cDo You Sleep in the Nude?\u201d with profiles of Barbra Streisand, Lucille Ball, Warren Beatty and others. His work appeared in Vogue, Esquire, GQ and Women\u2019s Wear Daily. He spent nearly four decades writing about films for the Observer.<\/p>\n
Reed also acted occasionally, playing the pre-transition Myron in \u201cMyra Breckinridge\u201d and appearing alongside Laurence Olivier in the Korean War movie \u201cInchon.\u201d He never married and has no immediate survivors. It was his writing that was his legacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to be remembered as someone who really tried to make things better,\u201d Rex told his Observer editor earlier this year. \u201cOr at least respected what was good when it happened. Not as a curmudgeon. That\u2019s not what I am in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK (AP) – Rex Reed, the prominent and outspoken film critic and journalist known for his longtime column in The New York Observer, died Tuesday. He was 87. Reed died at his Manhattan home after a short illness, publicist Sean Katz said on behalf of Reed\u2019s friend William Kapfer. In a career spanning more … Continue reading Rex Reed, longtime film critic and journalist, dies at 87<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1506026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 03:57:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1506026"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1506397,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506026\/revisions\/1506397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1506026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1506026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1506026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}