Gene Shalit, longtime 'Today' show movie critic with bushy hair and
massive mustache, dies at 100
[June 13, 2026]
By MARK KENNEDY
NEW YORK (AP) — Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the
“Today” show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair,
oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has
died. He was 100.
Shalit's family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a
statement that he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an
amazing life.”
Shalit joined “Today” as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in
1973, later settling in for his segment, “Critic’s Corner.” When he left
the show in 2010, he was one of the last high-profile film critics on a
major network.
“What resonated above his unusual appearance was his incredible wit, his
remarkable intelligence. But he didn’t pound you over the head with it.
He amused you. He enlightened and amused whatever subject he was on,”
Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for more than 20 years, wrote in an essay
at the time of Shalit's retirement.
It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s
local “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” movie-review program, “Sneak Previews,”
went national on PBS in the late 1970s and that “Today” show's ABC
rival, “Good Morning America,” hired Joel Siegel to be its movie critic
in 1981.
“Shalit was instrumental in changing the balance of critical power in
America. When he began his ‘Today’ tenure, newspapers and magazines were
the primary sources for movie reviews. That’s where cinematic opinion
was sparked and shaped,” The Plain Dealer wrote in 2010, calling Shalit
“Daniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses.”
Magazine work led to NBC offer
Shalit started as an entertainment columnist for McCall’s magazine,
eventually becoming senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and
writing for Ladies’ Home Journal. His popularity in magazines led to an
offer from NBC.
“No one at NBC had seen him. They’d only read his stuff. So he walked
into this executive’s office and the executive took one look at him and
said, ‘Mr. Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?’” wrote Ludwig. “They
didn’t know how the public would react to someone who looked so
different from people who were typically on TV in 1967.”
On the air, Shalit was a middle-of-the-road critic. Of 1986’s classic
“Stand By Me,” he said it was different from other movies about youth
“because of instead of grossing you out, ‘Stand by You’ is engrossing.”
“Many critics will give so much of the plot of a movie away that they
destroy the movie for the viewer. ... I just don’t give away the story,”
he told The Associated Press in 1993.
Highlights in words
He liked “Enemy at the Gates,” starring Jude Law, calling it “a vivid
dramatization of one of history’s titanic turning points.” But he called
“Brokeback Mountain “wildly overpraised, but not by me” and drew
condemnation from GLAAD for calling Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack, a
“sexual predator.” Shalit apologized.
He called “Frozen” “very cool.” He said the oddball title of “The Men
Who Stare at Goats” was “heard to bleat,” and his review of “The Lovely
Bones” read in part: “There’s no bones about it.”
He began reviewing on air the year of “Patton” and “Love Story” and
ended his run with a critique of “Shrek Forever After,” of which he
noted that the “bellow fellow is now a mellow fellow.” One highlight of
this tenure was his descent into a fit of giggles while interviewing
Carol Channing.
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In this May 31, 2006 file photo, film critic Gene Shalit is seen
during a toast with "Today" show cast and crew at the end of Katie
Couric's final show, in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
He called a remake of “King Kong” so
“gargantuan that I must create new words to describe it: fabularious
… a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity.” His take on
Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”:
“It should be against the law not to see it.”
In a 1981 interview with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Belushi said
Shalit’s hair looked like “an ant farm on fire.” Nevertheless, he
peppered his guest with so many questions about their daily life
that it felt like therapy. He asked both comedians what their last
meals would be. “What do you want to be doing 10 years from now,
John Belushi?” Shalit asked. “Fiddler on the Roof” Belushi replied.
During his tenure, he traded quips with anchors ranging from Edwin
Newman, Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley to Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel,
Katie Couric, Al Roker and Meredith Vieira.
Gumbel was not always a fan, once saying Shalit’s reviews “are often
late and his interviews aren’t very good.” The critique came in what
was supposed to be a confidential memo to Marty Ryan, the show’s
executive producer at the time.
In 1994, while in St. Pete Beach, Florida, to cover Major League
Baseball spring training, a car hit Shalit as he was crossing a
street and broke his leg. After that, “Today” began recording his
movie reviews in his home studio.
Early life
He was born in New York and grew up in Morristown, New Jersey,
starting his grammar school’s first newspaper before writing a humor
column for the newspaper while a student at Morristown High School.
He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949.
Shalit played the bassoon, but he said he started out on the
clarinet.
“I didn’t practice for a few weeks and the teacher got furious,” he
recalled in 1988, before playing bassoon in a New York City
fundraiser. “He took away my clarinet and as punishment he said,
‘From now on, you’re gonna play THIS.’”
In 1987, he edited a book called “Laughing Matters: A Celebration of
American Humor,” saying he wanted to introduce and reintroduce such
old and new masters of American humor as Mark Twain, James Thurber
and Russell Baker.
Shalit was regularly mocked on “Saturday Night Live” by cast member
Horatio Sanz, who would appear on the “Weekend Update” desk dressed
as Shalit and go on extended, barely coherent rants that punned the
title of every movie he reviewed. Shalit also made cameos on “Sesame
Street,” “Family Guy” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
Shalit was predeceased in 1978 by his wife, Nancy Lewis, and had six
children.
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