Rex Reed, ‘bad boy of entertainment journalism’ dies at 87. He began writing career at LSU | News

Rex Reed, who spent six decades reviewing movies and writing about their stars, died Tuesday in his Manhattan home at age 87.

Reed was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on Oct. 2, 1938, and spent part of his childhood in Baton Rouge. In a 2012 feature story for The Advocate, he recounted spending Saturdays hopping a bus from his home in the Villa Del Rey subdivision to downtown Baton Rouge, taking in a movie at the Paramount, then eating lunch at the Piccadilly Cafeteria on Third Street.

He was only 10 years old at the time.

“I felt so grown up, going downtown by myself,” he told The Advocate.

He graduated from LSU with a degree in journalism in 1960. While in college, he wrote film reviews for LSU’s Daily Reveille and The Morning Advocate. He was inducted into the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication Hall of Fame in 1999.   

Reed moved to New York in the early 1960s, where he not only wrote about pop culture, art and celebrities for publications such as GQ, Vogue and The New York Times, but also became a public figure who made regular appearances on television talk shows and in films.

Reed also wrote the longtime column, “Talk of the Town,” for The New York Observer. The New York Times, in its own tribute to Reed, described his writing style as “prose that was graceful and evocative but often also the literary equivalent of a poison-tipped dagger plunged between the shoulder blades.”

The movie critic also occasionally stepped in front of the camera, taking roles in films such as Gore Vidal’s 1970 “Myra Breckinridge,” “Superman” in 1978, “Inchon” in 1981 and “Irreconcilable Differences” in 1984.

He also was a writer, and in 2012 brought his stage concert production, “The Man That Got Away: Ira Without George,” tracing the life and lyrics of Ira Gershwin, to the LSU Union Theater. Reed not only was the writer but also the narrator for this show, which featured Broadway star Sally Mayes, jazz singer Kurt Reichenbach and actors and singers Gregory Harrison and Linda Purl.

Reed had been suffering from declining health in recent months. In its obituary, The Hollywood Reporter noted that Reed’s reviews established him as the “bad boy of entertainment journalism.”