{"id":213641,"date":"2026-06-13T10:10:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/gene-shalit-longtime-today-show-movie-critic-dies-at-100-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T10:10:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T10:10:06","slug":"gene-shalit-longtime-today-show-movie-critic-dies-at-100-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/gene-shalit-longtime-today-show-movie-critic-dies-at-100-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene Shalit, longtime Today show movie critic, dies at 100 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beloved movie critic and arts reporter was known for bushy hair and mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns
Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the Today show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.
Shalit\u2019s family announced the death Friday to NBC<\/a> News, saying in a statement that he \u201cpassed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life\u201d.
Shalit joined Today as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in 1973, later settling in for his segment, Critic\u2019s Corner. When he left the show in 2010, he was one of the last high-profile film critics on a major network.
\u201cWhat resonated above his unusual appearance was his incredible wit, his remarkable intelligence. But he didn\u2019t pound you over the head with it. He amused you. He enlightened and amused whatever subject he was on,\u201d Guy Ludwig, Shalit\u2019s producer for more than 20 years, wrote in an essay.
It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel\u2019s local \u201cthumbs-up, thumbs-down\u201d movie-review program, Sneak Previews, went national on PBS in the late 1970s and that Today show\u2019s ABC rival, Good Morning America, hired Joel Siegel to be its movie critic in 1981.
\u201cShalit was instrumental in changing the balance of critical power in America. When he began his \u2018Today\u2019 tenure, newspapers and magazines were the primary sources for movie reviews. That\u2019s where cinematic opinion was sparked and shaped,\u201d the Plain Dealer wrote in 2010, calling Shalit \u201cDaniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses\u201d.
Shalit started as an entertainment columnist for McCall\u2019s magazine, eventually becoming senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and writing for Ladies\u2019 Home Journal. His popularity in magazines led to an offer from NBC.
\u201cNo one at NBC had seen him. They\u2019d only read his stuff. So he walked into this executive\u2019s office and the executive took one look at him and said, \u2018Mr Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?\u2019\u201d wrote Ludwig. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know how the public would react to someone who looked so different from people who were typically on TV in 1967.\u201d
On the air, Shalit was a middle-of-the-road critic. Of 1986\u2019s classic Stand By Me, he said it was different from other movies about youth \u201cbecause of instead of grossing you out, Stand by You is engrossing\u201d.
\u201cMany critics will give so much of the plot of a movie away that they destroy the movie for the viewer \u2026 I just don\u2019t give away the story,\u201d he told the Associated Press in 1993.
He liked Defiance starring Daniel Craig and Jude Law, calling it \u201ca vivid dramatization of one of history\u2019s titanic turning points\u201d. But he called Brokeback Mountain \u201cwildly overpraised, but not by me\u201d and drew condemnation from Glaad for calling Jake Gyllenhaal\u2019s character, Jack, a \u201csexual predator\u201d. Shalit apologized.
He called Frozen \u201cvery cool.\u201d He said the oddball title of The Men Who Stare at Goats was \u201cheard to bleat,\u201d and his review of The Lovely Bones read in part: \u201cThere\u2019s no bones about it.\u201d
He called a remake of King Kong\u201d so \u201cgargantuan that I must create new words to describe it: fabularious \u2026 a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity\u201d. His take on Steven Spielberg\u2019s adaptation of Alice Walker\u2019s The Color Purple: \u201cIt should be against the law not to see it.\u201d
During his tenure, he traded quips with anchors ranging 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 always a fan, once saying Shalit\u2019s reviews \u201care often late and his interviews aren\u2019t very good\u201d. The critique came in what was supposed to be a confidential memo to Marty Ryan, the show\u2019s executive producer at the time.
He was born in New York and grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, starting his grammar school\u2019s first newspaper before writing a humor column for the newspaper while a student at Morristown high school. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949.
In 1987, he edited a book called Laughing Matters: a Celebration of American Humor, saying he wanted to introduce and reintroduce such old and new masters of American humor as Mark Twain, James Thurber and Russell Baker.
Shalit was regularly mocked on Saturday Night Live by cast member Horatio Sanz, who would appear on the Weekend Update desk dressed as Shalit and go on an extended, barely coherent rants that punned the title of every movie he reviewed. Shalit also made cameos on Sesame Street, Family Guy and Spongebob Squarepants.
He is survived by a daughter, Willa Shalit.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beloved movie critic and arts reporter was known for bushy hair and mustache and affection for groan-inducing punsGene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the Today show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100.Shalit\u2019s family announced the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":213642,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-213641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}