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By Jan Wahl\u2014<\/p>\n
In my last column, we explored the glittering neighborhoods of 1950s and \u201960s Beverly Hills and Westwood. Since then, readers, including my friend Adam Kent, have asked how I transitioned into television from there. So, we sat down over coffee and\u00a0dished.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: How did you make the transition to becoming a well-known TV movie critic?<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0I fell in love with the TV show\u00a060 Minutes\u00a0as a child. I loved non-fiction storytelling. Because of where I lived, I got a chance to be on TV when I was in high school. I appeared as a student on Gene Autry\u2019s TV station, KTLA. I preferred the world of television to the world of film because it moves faster and there aren\u2019t long setup times.<\/p>\n
Fast-forward to my first broadcasting gig: I called a radio station and \u201ckilled\u201d a movie I had just seen. The DJ liked it so much he kept putting me on the air to do movie reviews.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: How old were you?<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0I was in my twenties. At that time, there was nobody else colorful, funny, and steeped in Hollywood history doing movie reviews. KRON-TV hired me, leading to 22 years on the air.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: Why the hats?<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0The song \u201cYou Gotta Have a Gimmick\u201d from the musical\u00a0Gypsy\u00a0helped me decide to wear hats. I would rate movies with four hats being the highest. Pretty soon, people were yelling out of their cars, \u201cHey, Wahl, how many hats does this movie get?\u201d It was very gutsy for KRON to allow me to do this.<\/p>\n
Eventually, stars and celebrities would come to be interviewed by me to promote their projects. That\u2019s how I met Mel Brooks. He invited me to come down to Los Angeles to interview him in his office. I recommend the two-part HBO documentary\u00a0Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man. He is remarkable and a broadcaster\u2019s dream since he talks in soundbites.<\/p>\n
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Jan Wahl interviewing actor Troy Donahue during a cruise<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: I met you on a cruise ship giving lectures on Hollywood. How did you get that gig?<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0I combined my love of performing with my teaching about early Hollywood, and it turned into a lecture series on Crystal Cruises. I still give lectures with film clips, including segments on gays and lesbians in showbiz history.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: Did you meet anyone from the movie industry while giving lectures on the cruises?<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl: I interviewed everyone from Patricia Neil to Jay Russell on the cruises, but my favorite was Troy Donahue, who became a good friend. Later on, with the brilliant Marc Huestis, we put together an unforgettable night with Sandra Dee at The Castro Theater.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: Yes, I hear that you are still giving lectures. Tell me more.<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0I\u2019m a regular professor at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco. My next class this fall is titled \u201cScandals, Songs, and Supporting Characters.\u201d It\u2019s a lot of dishy fun, and people come away learning a new way to watch movies.<\/p>\n
Adam Kent: Tell me about a high point in your career.<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl:\u00a0Winning two Emmys for documentary production was pretty great. My favorite memory, though, is sitting with my mother at the ceremony. I knew they were going to call my name, so I turned to her and said, \u201cI am going to thank you, because you were always there for me.\u201d She grabbed my arm in that \u201cmother way\u201d and said, \u201cDon\u2019t thank me; thank your boss. I will always be your mother.\u201d I thanked the boss, and the next day he put me in the Directors Guild of America. Thanks, Mom!<\/p>\n
Jan Wahl is a Hollywood historian and film critic on various broadcast outlets. She has two Emmys and many awards for her longtime work on behalf of film buffs and the LGBTQ community. Contact her at www.janwahl.com<\/p>\n
Off the Wahl
Published on February 26, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jan Wahl\u2014 In my last column, we explored the glittering neighborhoods of 1950s and \u201960s Beverly Hills…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-194196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}