Obituary: Rex Reed

Caustic film critic, journalist, and sometime actor Rex Reed, 87, died today.  He died at his home at the fabled Dakota,  the apartment which he bought for $30,000 way back in 1969.  Now only the megarich can afford to live there.  

For his part, Reed died after a short illness.  He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1938, and, thanks to his father's job, lived all over the southern U.S.  He received a journalism degree from Louisiana State University in 1960.  He had wanted to become an actor, but he ended up writing newspaper columns.  

It is just as well he did.  As  bad film fanatics remember, he starred or rather co-starred in one of the all-time worst movies, 1970's Myra Breckenridge.  Of course, he played the "Myron" part while Raquel Welch actually played the title role.  It was a shit movie, more stupid than offensive. Yes, I have that movie on DVD and have had it for years.

Reed fared way better with criticism.  One of his most famous screeds was his evisceration of Frank Sinatra when the latter performed at Madison Square Garden in 1974.  The San Francisco Chronicle reprinted it, and I liked the particular column so much, I saved a copy of it for decades.  I think I still have that scrapbook and that column.  Reed said Sinatra looked like Porky Pig and his wardrobe made him look like Elmer Fudd. He said his ego was bigger than the Sahara, "the desert, not the hotel in Las Vegas, although either comparison applies."   He declared this about Sinatra's ability as a singer, "The grim truth is Frank Sinatra has had it."  I remember entire sentences from that column fifty years later.  My favorite line was this:  "When you looked into the ol' blue eyes, you saw the River Stix."  When Reed wanted to, he could really write.  Sinatra, meanwhile, wasn't happy with the column, but he and Reed continued with their careers.

Snip:

Reed was not the typical dowdy or frumpy critic. With his nasally drawl and fashionable attire, he was front and center in a profession where most writers of his time were behind-the-scenes personalities who shied from public exposure. His hauteur could be endearing or off-putting.

Some considered him to be representative of “New Journalism” — his 1966 piece about an angry Ava Gardner for Esquire made it into Tom Wolfe’s noteworthy 1973 anthology — while others decried him as being a celebrity monger. (He was a judge on The Gong Show in the 1970s, after all.)