Gene Shalit, longtime ‘Today’ show movie critic, dies at 100

NEW YORK — Gene Shalit, a film critic and humanities reporter for the “As we speak” present over 4 many years who was identified for his puffy hair, outsized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.

Shalit’s household introduced the loss of life Friday to NBC Information, saying in a press release that he “handed away peacefully at present after 100 years of an incredible life.”

Shalit joined “As we speak” as a contributor in 1970 and have become arts editor in 1973, later settling in for his phase, “Critic’s Nook.” When he left the present in 2010, he was one of many final high-profile movie critics on a serious community.

“What resonated above his uncommon look was his unimaginable wit, his exceptional intelligence. However he did not pound you over the top with it. He amused you. He enlightened and amused no matter topic he was on,” Man Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for greater than 20 years, wrote in an essay of his time.

It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s native “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” movie-review program, “Sneak Previews,” went nationwide on PBS within the late Nineteen Seventies and that “As we speak” present’s ABC rival, “Good Morning America,” employed Joel Siegel to be its film critic in 1981.

“Shalit was instrumental in altering the stability of important energy in America. When he started his ‘As we speak’ tenure, newspapers and magazines had been the first sources for film evaluations. That is the place cinematic opinion was sparked and formed,” The Plain Seller wrote in 2010, calling Shalit “Daniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses.”

Journal work led to NBC supply

Shalit began as an leisure columnist for McCall’s journal, finally turning into senior movie critic for Look journal in 1968 and writing for Women’ Residence Journal. His reputation in magazines led to a proposal from NBC.

“Nobody at NBC had seen him. They’d solely learn his stuff. So he walked into this govt’s workplace and the manager took one have a look at him and stated, ‘Mr. Shalit, have you ever ever considered radio?'” wrote Ludwig. “They did not understand how the general public would react to somebody who regarded so completely different from individuals who had been sometimes on TV in 1967.”

On the air, Shalit was a middle-of-the-road critic. Of 1986’s basic “Stand By Me,” he stated it was completely different from different motion pictures about youth “due to as an alternative of grossing you out, ‘Stand by You’ is engrossing.”

“Many critics will give a lot of the plot of a film away that they destroy the film for the viewer… I simply do not give away the story,” he instructed The Related Press in 1993.

Highlights in phrases

He preferred “Defiance” starring Daniel Craig and Jude Regulation, calling it “a vivid dramatization of one among historical past’s titanic turning factors.” However he referred to as “Brokeback Mountain “wildly overpraised, however not by me” and drew condemnation from GLAAD for calling Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack, a “sexual predator.” Shalit apologized.

He referred to as “Frozen” “very cool.” He stated the oddball title of “The Males Who Stare at Goats” was “heard to bleat,” and his assessment of “The Beautiful Bones” learn partially: “There isn’t any bones about it.”

He started reviewing on the air the yr of “Patton” and “Love Story” and ended his run with a critique of “Shrek Perpetually After,” of which he famous that the “bellow fellow is now a mellow fellow.” One spotlight of this tenure was his descent right into a match of giggles whereas interviewing Carol Channing.

He referred to as a remake of “King Kong” so “gargantuan that I have to create new phrases to explain it: fabularious … a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity.” His tackle Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s “The Coloration Purple”: “It ought to be in opposition to the regulation to not see it.”

In a 1981 interview with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Belushi stated Shalit’s hair regarded like “an ant farm on fireplace.” However, he peppered his visitor with so many questions on their every day life that it felt like remedy. He requested each comedians what their final meals could be. “What do you need to be doing 10 years from now, John Belushi?” Shalit requested. “‘Fiddler on the Roof'” Belushi replied.

Throughout his tenure, he traded quips with anchors starting from Edwin Newman, Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley to Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, Jane Pauley, Al Roker and Meredith Vieira.

Gumbel was not at all times a fan, as soon as saying Shalit’s evaluations “are sometimes late and his interviews aren’t superb.” The critique got here in what was speculated to be a confidential memo to Marty Ryan, the present’s govt producer on the time.

In 1994, whereas in St. Pete Seaside, Florida, to cowl Main League Baseball spring coaching, a automobile hit Shalit as he was crossing a road and broke his leg. After that, “As we speak” started recording his film evaluations in his dwelling studio.

Formative years

He was born in New York and grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, beginning his grammar college’s first newspaper earlier than writing a humor column for the newspaper whereas a scholar at Morristown Excessive College. He graduated from the College of Illinois in 1949.

Shalit performed the bassoon, however he stated he began out on the clarinet.

“I did not observe for a number of weeks and the trainer acquired livid,” he recalled in 1988, earlier than enjoying bassoon in a New York Metropolis fundraiser. “He took away my clarinet and as punishment he stated, ‘Any further, you are gonna play THIS.'”

In 1987, he edited a ebook referred to as “Laughing Issues: A Celebration of American Humor,” saying he needed to introduce and reintroduce such outdated and new masters of American humor as Mark Twain, James Thurber and Russell Baker.

Shalit was usually mocked on “Saturday Night time Stay” by solid member Horatio Sanz, who would seem on the Weekend Replace desk dressed as Shalit and go on an prolonged, barely coherent rants that punned the title of each film he reviewed. Shalit additionally made cameos on “Sesame Road,” “Household Man” and “Spongebob Squarepants.”

He’s survived by a daughter, Willa Shalit.