{"id":498360,"date":"2026-06-13T22:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T22:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498360\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T22:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T22:19:10","slug":"gene-shalit-film-critic-bristling-with-hair-and-puns-dies-at-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/498360\/","title":{"rendered":"Gene Shalit, Film Critic Bristling With Hair and Puns, Dies at 100"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">Besides reviewing movies, books, plays and other cultural offerings, Mr. Shalit interviewed authors and entertainers, including Barbra Streisand, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro and Sophia Loren. He did cameos of himself in several movies and television shows, and was a familiar figure on television game and talk shows and charity fund-raisers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">On \u201cToday,\u201d a program sensitive to ratings and notable for personnel changes, Mr. Shalit was the durable mainstay in a cast that over the years included <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/12\/30\/business\/media\/barbara-walters-dead.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barbara Walters<\/a>, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/04\/24\/business\/media\/jim-hartz-dead.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jim Hartz<\/a>, Tom Brokaw, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1996\/07\/13\/arts\/john-chancellor-professorial-anchor-and-commentator-at-nbc-is-deadat-68.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Chancellor<\/a>, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/02\/arts\/television\/hugh-downs-dead.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hugh Downs<\/a>, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/03\/24\/sports\/baseball\/joe-garagiola-broadcasting-catcher-dies-at-90.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joe Garagiola<\/a>, Deborah Norville, Jane Pauley, Katie Couric, Bryant Gumbel, Al Roker, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/09\/04\/arts\/television\/willard-scott-dead.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Willard Scott<\/a>, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">Mr. Shalit joined \u201cToday\u201d in 1968 as a book reviewer, became a regular in 1970 and was the culture critic from 1973 until he retired in 2010. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">His producer, Guy Ludwig, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.today.com\/allday\/gene-shalits-longtime-producer-shares-his-memories-legend-1C9384041\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">reflecting on Mr. Shalit\u2019s long career<\/a> in 2010, recalled seeing Mr. Shalit, late in his career, entering a theater for a screening with a look of glee on his face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">\u201cMy God, how could you?\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ve seen two million movies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">\u201cYeah,\u201d Mr. Shalit replied, \u201cbut I\u2019ve never seen this one!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-140ip4z e1me5xab0\">Eugene Theodore Shalit (rhymes with PAL-it) was born in New York City on March 25, 1926, to Latvian immigrants, Isadore and Anna (Michelovich) Shalit. He grew up in Newark and Morristown, N.J., where his father owned a drugstore. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Besides reviewing movies, books, plays and other cultural offerings, Mr. Shalit interviewed authors and entertainers, including Barbra Streisand,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,210919,93,256,61,60,270,213414,213413,213411,904,213412],"class_list":["post-498360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-entertainment","tag-gene","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-national-broadcasting-co","tag-news-and-news-media","tag-shalit","tag-television","tag-today-tv-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}