Remembering Legendary Film Reviewer Rex Reed

I was very sorry to learn that Rex Reed died today, aged 87. He was a giant character, a peerless storyteller and a quintessential New Yorker. All three of those traits sometimes obscured that he was usually a very insightful critic and occasionally an excellent writer.

When I first fell in love with the Peter Kaplan-edited New York Observer in the 1990s, Rex reviewed half the films and Andrew Sarris the other half. My goodness, what a team. And then 20 years later, I became Rex’s editor when I was named editor in chief of the Observer and he was still lingering around, still vinegary, still capable of a 3-hour lunch on Broadway with Drew Grant and me dangling for details of stories about Rock Hudson and whoever. I had come of age in awe of Rex Reed, in awe of ALL the writers anthologized in Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism.

I called Rex during my first week to introduce myself and ask for his address so I could send him a coveted Observer t-shirt. I mentioned that I had recently rewatched Lost in America and loved his part in it — the film begins with like a minute long segment of Rex being interviewed. He corrected me that it wasn’t a “part” — it was just a voiceover of tape of him on Larry King. He was snotty about it and clearly expected me to last six months or less. I loved it.

Five weeks into my tenure, Rex’s review of Identity Thief referred to Melissa McCarthy as a “hippo” and “tractor sized.” These are not nice words to use, and worse it’s low-effort criticism. Privately, I told Rex that I was disappointed at both the cruelty and laziness of fat jokes. But I don’t cave to heckler’s vetoes. I ignored loud demands to fire him and I told The Wrap, “Rex has a right to his opinion and The New York Observer’s smart, passionate readers have a right to disagree with his opinion.”

After 50+ years of puncturing large egos and zinging Hollywood royalty, Rex was surprised by the intensity of the backlash he faced for his misogynistic and nasty remarks. Times had changed. He didn’t want to. I understood that.

Rex appreciated that I came to his defense. A year later a mutual friend complained to him about what an asshole I am and he stuck up for me, which the friend later told me came as a surprise. When he wanted to earn a few extra bucks by adding Broadway reviews to his movie reviews, our regular theater critic Jesse Oxfeld felt Rex breathing down his neck. I was able to get Rex to back off (partially, and only for a while) because of the good will that remained from the McCarthy scuffle.

Rex was not an easy fellow to manage, either for me or for the series of entertainment editors he chewed through. I just dug out an angry missive Rex sent me to complain about Drew (who he loved and thought highly of) having not published his review of the Andrew Neel film Goat, apparently because she had something else planned on one of the actors in it.

It has always been my impression that the decision of what to review is my province alone. Unless I’m very mistaken, that policy seems to have changed. I have even been told to lay off certain movies because Drew has some kind of future feature planned on those particular titles, even though the release is months away. I don’t know what a feature article in the planning stage has to do with an actual review from a paper’s only critic, but I do know that I object to being told what NOT to write about. I’m sure you can understand what I am talking about.

I guess I must have told him to be nice. He wrote, “I do get along with everyone who plays fair — especially you! — and demonstrates some faith in my talent, reputation and ability. I always got along splendidly with everyone at the Observer before, but I am really being treated like crap now and I’m sure you can understand why I do NOT like it.”

Reading back through some of the great emails he sent me — from an AOL account, naturally — one of the last ones was to me and Merin Curotto, who is now the Observer’s EIC. He was complaining that we were taking too long to reimburse him for covering the Toronto Film Festival. “Would you please get into this personally and put a tracer on what happened?” He would have been 80 at the time.

When I revealed that I was leaving the Observer — I had lasted about five years as editor, 10 times longer than Rex predicted— Rex emailed me, “I am naturally perplexed and saddened, [at your leaving] but for the moment I am primarily concerned with all the back pay I am owed by the New York Observer.”

There’s not really room for a Rex Reed anymore. No one takes three-hour lunches and if they did, they’d be on their phone for most of it. No one cares about old Hollywood or why Ava Gardner was a beauty ethereally different from any other. These are sad things to lose, but this guy remained true to himself and his values the whole way. I admire it and I miss him already.

Here’s Reed excoriating Eden and Jude Law in one of his last reviews.