Rex Reed, Critic Who Often Courted Controversy, Dies at 87

Rex Reed, a critic and journalist known for his brash, often acidic takes on films and filmmakers, died Tuesday at his Manhattan home. He was 87.

William Kapfer, Reed’s longtime friend, confirmed his death. No cause was given. Reed burst on the movie criticism scene in the 1960s, and was part of a wave of new reviewers, Pauline Kael among them, who offered a sharper, jazzier alternative to the more staid forms of analysis that had been showcased by major outlets. These writers also had the good fortune to arrive as cinema itself was undergoing a transformation, with the studio system collapsing and something sexier, edgier and barrier-breaking emerging in its place.

Reed’s reviews, as well as his stylishly written profiles of Hollywood and Broadway stars ranging from “Easy Rider’s” Peter Fonda and Barbra Streisand to Ava Gardner and Buster Keaton, were featured in publications like The New York Times, GQ, Esquire, and Vogue. These moved beyond the bland and laudatory, offering candid and penetrating portraits of artists and celebrities that stand out in an era where A-listers are guarded by armies of publicists and handlers. His writings were collected in numerous books, including his first, “Do You Sleep in the Nude?”

Over the last four decades, Reed, a frequent presences on the New York social scene, penned a column in the New York Observer, where he often courted controversy. He helped originate a rumor that Jack Palance read the wrong name when he handed Marisa Tomei her Oscar, and dismissed Marlee Matlin’s Academy Awards victory for “Children of a Lesser God” as a “pity vote.” His writing often moved beyond the incisive into the offensive, as when he dismissed the Korean revenge thriller “Oldboy” by writing, “What else can you expect from a nation weaned on kimchi, a mixture of raw garlic and cabbage buried underground until it rots, dug up from the grave and then served in earthenware pots sold at the Seoul airport as souvenirs?” Or when he called Melissa McCarthy, “tractor-sized” and a “hippo.” Both reviews sparked an online furor.

Reed’s criticism could be merciless, but he recoiled at the suggestion he was a crank. “I like just as many films as I dislike,” Reed told The New York Times in a 2018 profile. “But I think we’re drowning in mediocrity. I just try as hard as I can to raise the level of consciousness. It’s so hard to get people to see good films.”

Reed was one of the rare critics to step in front of the camera. He starred in the movie adaptation of Gore Vidal’s “Myra Breckinridge,” earning savage notices, and also appeared in such films as “Superman” and “Irreconcilable Differences.” He was a regular guest on “The Dick Cavett Show” and “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson, serving up unvarnished takes on Hollywood and its latest movies. No surprise, he often found them lacking.