It is with deep sadness that the New York Film Critics Circle acknowledges the passing of our longest-standing member, Rex Reed, who died at his home in New York City early this morning, aged 87.
Known for his scathing wit, which often veered unapologetically into savage personal digs (ask Melissa McCarthy or Marlee Matlin or Marisa Tomei), Rex was the most fearlessly opinionated of all of us, in a profession where opinions are the key tools of the trade. Good or bad, respectful, dismissive or outrageous, Rex was a true original and a brilliant prose stylist.
His dishy volumes of insider essays, such as People Are Crazy Here or Conversations in the Raw, for many of us were a gateway to an almost mythical industry, at a time when New Hollywood had not yet become a global conglomerate. Was he the only critics circle member who ever shoplifted CDs from Tower Records? Possibly not, but to my knowledge he was the only one who got caught, later spinning that incident into a hilarious anecdote about Peggy Lee’s delight that one of her albums was among the pocketed stash.
Rex joined the NYFCC in 1975 when he was a film critic at the New York Post, maintaining his membership for an unbroken 51 years through other various outlets including the New York Daily News and, since 1987, the New York Observer. He served as the group’s chair in 1990.