Eugene Shalit (born March 25, 1926) is an American retired journalist, television personality, film and book critic, and author. After starting to work part-time on NBC's The Today Show in 1970, he filled those roles from January 15, 1973, until retiring on November 11, 2010. He is known for his frequent use of puns, his oversized handlebar moustache and fuzzy hair, and for wearing colorful bow ties.

Early life and education

Shalit was born on March 25, 1926, in New York City, and raised in Newark and Morristown, New Jersey. Shalit is of Jewish ancestry. In high school, Shalit wrote a humor column for the school newspaper, which Gannett has identified as "The Korn Krib". Shalit attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he wrote for The Daily Illini from 1945 to 1949.

Career

Shalit, according to a Dick Clark interview in The New York Times Magazine, was Clark's press agent in the early 1960s. Shalit reportedly "stopped representing" Clark during a Congressional investigation of payola. Clark never spoke to Shalit again, and referred to him as a "jellyfish". Shalit has been involved in reviewing the arts since 1967 and has written for such publications as Look magazine, Ladies' Home Journal (for 12 years), Cosmopolitan, TV Guide, Seventeen, Glamour, McCall's, and The New York Times. From 1970 to 1982, Shalit broadcast a daily essay, Man About Anything, for the NBC Radio Network, which was NBC's most widely carried radio feature. In 1986, Shalit hosted a videocassette and laserdisc collection from MCA Home Video, Gene Shalit's Critic's Choice Video. Four images (five on the laserdisc covers) of Shalit appeared in a filmstrip on the front of the box with his reviews on the back. Titles included Touch of Evil, Destry Rides Again, Double Indemnity and The Ipcress File. Shalit announced that he would leave The Today Show after 40 years, effective November 11, 2010. He was quoted as saying "It's enough already", about his retirement. He has largely stayed out of the public eye since then, only appearing once for Willard Scott's retirement from NBC in 2015.

Brokeback Mountain review controversy

In 2005, Shalit gave a negative review to the film Brokeback Mountain, in which he described Jack Twist (the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal) as a "sexual predator" who "tracks Ennis [Heath Ledger's character] down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts." The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) responded by stating: Shalit's "baseless branding of Jack as a 'sexual predator' merely because he is romantically interested in someone of the same sex is defamatory, ignorant, and irresponsible" and that he "used the occasion to promote defamatory antigay prejudice to a national audience." Shalit's son Peter, who is gay, wrote a letter to GLAAD defending his father and stating he had not defamed anyone and was not homophobic, and further said the organization had defamed him by "falsely accusing him of a repellent form of bigotry." Shalit himself apologized for the wording of his review.

Written works

Personal life

Shalit was married to Nancy Lewis from 1950 until her death from cancer in 1978. For much of his career, he lived in Leonia, New Jersey. , he resided in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Nancy Lewis' and Gene Shalit's children include the artist and entrepreneur Willa Shalit. Another child is Peter Shalit, a physician and recognized authority on gay men's health and living with HIV. Their daughter Emily died of ovarian cancer in November 2012. On October 24, 2012, Shalit crashed his car in Lenox, Massachusetts, after accidentally falling asleep at the wheel. Misdemeanor charges of negligent driving to endanger were later dismissed after he agreed to stop driving until the dismissal, and he was to follow a "safety condition" approved by his attorney and the police chief.

In popular culture

Shalit guest-starred as the voice, and was portrayed in the form of a fish food critic named "Gene Scallop" in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "The Krusty Sponge". Shalit has been parodied in several episodes of Family Guy in cutaway gags, including "Brian Sings and Swings", "The Book of Joe", and "Big Man on Hippocampus", though Shalit did not provide voice acting for the series. Shalit also voiced a character portraying himself in three episodes of the animated series The Critic. A Muppet character based on him appeared in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence (1975). Shalit was portrayed in two episodes of Saturday Night Live by Jon Lovitz, and later in nine episodes by Horatio Sanz in sketches and Weekend Update sequences. Shalit was also portrayed on Second City Television several times by cast member Eugene Levy. On Late Night with David Letterman Shalit had his head squashed between two giant comedy hammers during an interview with David Letterman.