Rex Reed and the Death of Expert Opinion We Thought We Didn’t Need
A personal remembrance of the legendary film critic, who died Tuesday at 87—and what the world lost when it decided it didn't need gatekeepers anymore.
When I saw Joan Collins move through the crowd toward Rex Reed, and by default, me, I got that special sickening feeling you get when you’re friends with a famous critic who’s known for blending unfiltered opinion with unbridled literary flair that—like nuclear fusion—creates a lot of unpredictable energy.
Joan approached— coiffed, bejeweled, with a blinding smile and raising one manicured finger toward Rex.
“Hi Joan,” he Louisiana-drawled.
She wagged her finger and smiled even wider.
(Was she mad?)
“Rex, you naughty, naughty boy,” she cooed in British, patting his cheek.
(Yep.)
“I should be very, very angry with you.”
“Oh, Joan,” he laughed.
Then she kissed him while relaying unhappiness at his review of her recent one-person evening.
He didn’t think he’d said anything bad.
(Though there was that line, “You can accuse her of hanging on beyond her prime, but if you meet her in a dark alley, bring Mace.”)
Then they embraced. They’d been friends since the 1960s.
It was like being trapped in an episode of Dynasty.
Rex Reed, who died on Tuesday at 87, was the last of the great 20th-century American culture writers, as famous in his own right as the celebrities he often profiled. He came up in a class of energetic literary cultural observers that included Tom Wolfe, Nora Ephron and Patricia Bosworth. In publications like the New York Times, Esquire, GQ, Vogue, and later, for Reed, a decades-long run in the New York Observer, they held a mirror to the zeitgeist of the second part of the American Century.
Reed’s profiles of mostly movie stars from Warren Beatty to Marlene Dietrich had a literary heft and alchemy that produced eye-watering tell-alls at once astute, snarky, and culturally insightful: middle-of-the-night pastrami and star temperament filming Barbra Streisand’s first TV special at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (she’d never speak to him again); Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on the Rome set of the doomed blockbuster Cleopatra; and the clinically devastating portrait of segregationist Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, describing the baseball bats supplied to the young workers in his fried chicken joints, to keep out black customers. (Maddox swore never again to talk to a reporter, to Reed’s pride.) His first book of collected writings, Do You Sleep in the Nude? was a bestseller, as were subsequent books.
Movie-star handsome, he appeared in the notorious 1970 cult-flop version of Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge, playing the male counterpart to the transgender Raquel Welch. Jet-setting with Melina Mercouri, Studio 54-hopping with Liza Minnelli, he maintained homey lifelong friendships with Golden Age Hollywood stars like June Allyson, Jean Simmons, Polly Bergen, Angela Lansbury and Ali McGraw
His writing could be caustic. Opinionated. Sometimes mean. He was completely unrepentant. His pact was with his readers, to enlighten and entertain, tell it as he saw it, backed up by expertise and taste. Allegiance was not to the people or the hundred-million-dollar movie productions he was writing about. He passionately believed that’s what critics are for: to curate for the public.
Not long ago, the critics of legacy media held huge sway. We, on the receiving end, used to fantasize: “Why do we need critics?” Why can’t everything just be like Yelp, where audiences just rate what they like?
Spoiler alert. The world Rex leaves is one engulfed by everybody speaking their own opinions and truth directly to everybody else. Influencers whose credentials are the number of people they convince to follow them. Critics are no longer the gatekeepers to box office or sales. Expertise is out. Treating your own medical condition is in. Be careful what you wish for.
Deborah Grace Winer is a culture writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Town and Country and numerous other publications. The Wall Street Journal named her book on the lyricist Dorothy Fields one of the five best books about American Songwriters. She knew Rex Reed for over three decades.
