Rex Reed dead: Controversial TV critic and actor dies after short illness
The star often sparked backlash with his works.
Controversial film critic and author Rex Reed has died at home aged 87. His rep confirmed that his death followed a short illness, according to friend William Kapfer.
The late star, who previously acted in Myra Breckinridge and was a judge on The Gong Show, was best known for his provocative Hollywood interviews, which saw him named as a bad boy of entertainment journalism, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He contributed film reviews and columns to the New York Observer from the newspaper's inception in 1987, with his final review covering the film Truth & Treason in November. Prior to this, he spent 13 years as an arts critic for the New York Daily News and five years with the New York Post.
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The writer was well known as a notorious name-dropper and gossip and often appeared as a regular on The Dick Cavett Show and The Tonight Show in the 1970s.
Reed took great pleasure in interviewing and profiling actresses, particularly Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, Angela Lansbury and Melina Mercouri.
He once told Newsweek: "The old broads are the ones that interest me the most. Nothing bores me more than these mini-skirted girls with nothing on their minds."
More recently, he drew criticism for his descriptions of Melissa McCarthy, Renée Zellweger and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in his reviews.
He also sparked controversy surrounding the 1993 Oscars when he alleged that presenter Jack Palance had erroneously announced the wrong recipient for best supporting actress, naming My Cousin Vinny's Marisa Tomei.
Reed faced fierce backlash yet stood firm in his account, calling it a "massive cover-up" as late as 1997.
Meanwhile, on screen, Reed portrayed Myron, who becomes Myra (Raquel Welch) after undergoing a sex-change operation in a dream sequence, in Myra Breckinridge (1970). The film was adapted from Gore Vidal's salacious novel.
His involvement, however, did not stop him from giving the film a negative review.
He also appeared on the big screen in Jules Dassin's The Rehearsal (1974), as himself in Superman (1978), with Laurence Olivier in Inchon (1981) and with Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long in Irreconcilable Differences (1984).
Reed never married. "I don't have 'relationships,' except friends," he confided to the Times in 2018. "I don't know, love is not something that I've been really good at. I think people are intimidated by people with opinions."
