Rex Reed, contrarian film critic who perfected the skewering celebrity interview, dies at 87

Rex Reed, the longtime movie professional and personage interviewer known for his contrarian cognition and eloquent, vicious jabs of his pen, died Tuesday. He was 87.

The writer died astatine his Manhattan location aft a abbreviated illness, publicist Sean Katz told the Associated Press connected behalf of Reed’s person William Kapfer. Reed died successful his sleep, according to his New York Observer editor, Merin Curotto.

Reed was thing if not accordant successful his swipes astatine acclaimed actors and directors alike — the newer the acclaim, the much apt the criticism.

“For me, it ended successful the ‘40s,” Reed told erstwhile Times columnist Patrick Goldstein successful 2003. “I person much amusive watching Vincente Minnelli musicals and Michael Curtiz transgression thrillers than thing I spot today. If J. Lo is the caller Rita Hayworth, past fto maine disconnected uptown.”

Goldstein noted that the “pioneer of the skewering prima illustration has a bitchy integrity that has remained changeless done decades of shifting captious fashion.”

“I similar conscionable arsenic galore films arsenic I dislike,” Reed told the New York Times successful 2018. “But I deliberation we’re drowning successful mediocrity. I conscionable effort arsenic hard arsenic I tin to rise the level of consciousness. It’s truthful hard to get radical to spot bully films.”

Born successful Fort Worth, Texas, connected Oct. 2, 1938, Reed was an lone kid who grew up watching movies. Initially, helium would contiguous reviews to his mother’s span club. He studied journalism astatine Louisiana State University and was a columnist for the schoolhouse paper, the Daily Reveille, and for Baton Rouge’s Morning Observer.

“I interviewed anybody who came to the South to marque a movie — and determination were galore of them due to the fact that movies were being changeable connected determination successful plantation houses successful Mississippi and Louisiana,” helium told the New York Observer successful 2024. “I retrieve erstwhile Angela Lansbury and Paul Newman and Lee Remick and Joanne Woodward and Orson Welles came to Baton Rouge and made a movie called ‘The Long, Hot Summer.’ I got to conscionable each azygous 1 of those people. Angela Lansbury and I became large friends.”

Reed headed for New York City instantly aft assemblage and worked a bid of unusual jobs. Though helium couldn’t get a occupation arsenic a New York Times transcript boy, helium landed 1 of his archetypal nonrecreational pieces successful the city’s insubstantial of grounds aft crashing the Venice Film Festival successful autumn 1965 and faking his mode done interviews with Buster Keaton and “Breathless” histrion Jean-Paul Belmondo.

He wrote up the Keaton interrogation and sent it blindly to NYT. (Reed’s interrogation coiled up being Keaton’s last.) The Belmondo portion went to the now-defunct New York Herald Tribune.

“When I got backmost to New York, I had 2 stories successful the aforesaid Sunday, and I was the speech of the town,” Reed told the Los Angeles Times successful 2003.

Those were the kinds of interviews that coiled up successful his 1968 postulation “Do You Sleep successful the Nude?,” allegedly named for a question helium said helium erstwhile asked Ava Gardner.

Reed wrote for galore publications successful the ensuing years, including Vogue, Esquire, GQ and Women’s Wear Daily, earlier landing astatine the New York Observer erstwhile it was founded arsenic a people play successful 1987.

“I took the lowest signifier of journalism — the personage interrogation — and did thing with it,” Reed told his Observer exertion Curotto successful 2024. “I deliberation I elevated the genre successful the Times, Esquire, New York Magazine ... . And for a small lad who had nary wealth and didn’t cognize a surviving psyche who was celebrated to travel to New York and marque a sanction successful journalism, that was nary tiny achievement.”

He wasn’t 1 to chopped stars slack for their atrocious behavior. Early successful his career, erstwhile Barbra Streisand showed up 3½ hours precocious for an interview, Reed described the country thusly: “She plotzes into a seat with her legs dispersed out, bites into a greenish banana and says, ‘OK, ya got 20 minutes, whaddya privation to know?’” He chased Warren Beatty astir for an interrogation earlier “Bonnie and Clyde” came retired successful 1967, yet penning for Esquire, “Interviewing Warren is similar asking a hemophiliac for a pint of blood.”

Years later, successful a 2013 reappraisal of “Identity Thief” for the New York Observer — which helium joined erstwhile it launched successful 1987 — helium called prima Melissa McCarthy “cacophonous,” “tractor-sized,” a “humongous creep” and a “hippo.”

“McCarthy is simply a gimmick comedian who has devoted her abbreviated vocation to being obese and obnoxious with adjacent success,” Reed wrote. “Poor Jason Bateman. How did an histrion truthful charming, talented, charismatic and versatile get stuck successful truthful overmuch dreck?”

Reed often went against the fashionable grain, calling retired captious hits for what helium saw arsenic their fatal flaws. And helium wasn’t unaware that helium was bucking the tide, penning successful precocious 2017 astir “The Shape of Water,” “Here I americium again, retired connected a limb with a saw successful my hand. I’ve been present before, but ne'er person I disagreed with rather truthful galore colleagues (including a fewer I really respect) astir the aforesaid movie. But arsenic the twelvemonth draws to a close, I stay aghast astatine the mode critics person not lone embraced but slobbered implicit ‘The Shape of Water.’”

The movie would, a fewer months later, triumph 4 Oscars, including those for directing and champion picture.

Reed’s instrumentality connected it? “[T]he much I effort to find immoderate benignant of justifiable meaning and relevance, the much I find ‘The Shape of Water’ a loopy, lunkheaded load of drivel,” helium wrote. “Not arsenic anserine and pointless arsenic that different critically overrated portion of junk ‘Get Out,’ but determined to spell down trying.”

After Marlee Matlin won the 1987 Oscar for histrion successful a pb relation for her enactment successful “Children of a Lesser God,” Reed declared that she had won lone due to the fact that of a “pity vote.” He said nominating her was a discarded due to the fact that determination weren’t galore roles for a “deaf mute” to perform.

Matlin said years aboriginal that she couldn’t hide Reed’s words. “That stupid, f—ing ...,” Matlin told The Times’ columnist Glenn Whipp galore years later, successful 2021. “Clearly authenticity wasn’t successful his vocabulary.”

Reed was an occasional histrion himself, making a cameo successful the 1978 mentation of “Superman” and performing tiny parts successful a fewer films successful the 1970s and ‘80s. He besides hosted “At the Movies” for a while, taking a spot crossed from chap professional Bill Harris, and served arsenic a panelist connected “The Gong Show.”

He was openly cheery but declared himself escaped of relationships, “except friends.”

“Love is not thing that I’ve been truly bully at,” helium told the New York Times successful 2018. “I deliberation radical are intimidated by radical with opinions.”

Reed lived from 1969 until his decease astatine the Dakota successful Manhattan successful a two-bedroom, two-bath flat helium bought for $30,000.

Reed’s last communicative for the Observer was an appreciation past December for Arthur L. Carter, who founded the outlet.

“Carter cared much astir writers than their editorial opinions,” the professional wrote. “He was devoted to quality. He ne'er rejected a azygous thought of excavation and ne'er failed to stock enthusiasm for an nonfiction oregon reappraisal that peculiarly appealed to him. An look of approval, nary substance however small, is meaningful to a writer and is often overlooked. Carter was cautious to marque his support each spot arsenic invaluable arsenic his occasional criticism. As the lone writer known to person appeared successful The New York Observer from its inception, I americium arrogant to accidental that I person nary representation of immoderate antagonistic absorption to immoderate azygous reappraisal oregon diagnostic I ever wrote. That, for immoderate writer with the remotest arguable reputation, is thing uniquely unheard of.”

It was a self-centered burst of kindness that ran antagonistic to overmuch of what Reed was known for.

“I’d similar to beryllium remembered arsenic idiosyncratic who truly tried to marque things better,” the writer told his Observer exertion earlier this year, according to the AP. “Or astatine slightest respected what was bully erstwhile it happened. Not arsenic a curmudgeon. That’s not what I americium successful existent life.”