Gene Shalit, longtime Today critic, dies at 100

Gene Shalit, the wisecracking movie critic whose puffy hair, handlebar mustache and pun-heavy reviews made him a distinctive presence on NBC’s “Today” show for four decades, has died. He was 100.

Shalit’s family announced his death Friday to NBC News, saying he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life.” No cause of death was provided, the BBC reported.

A fixture in American morning television from the 1970s until his retirement in 2010, Shalit joined “Today” as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in 1973. He later settled into his signature segment, “Critic’s Corner,” where his animated delivery, thick-framed glasses, bow ties and wordplay set him apart from other reviewers.

“The ‘TODAY’ Show was an extraordinary era for him,” his family said in a statement shared with NBC News.

Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for more than 20 years, wrote that Shalit’s appeal went beyond his appearance. “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,” Ludwig wrote.

Shalit was among the last high-profile film critics on a major network when he left “Today.” His long run coincided with a shift in how Americans encountered movie criticism, as television critics began to compete with newspapers and magazines. The Plain Dealer wrote in 2010 that “Shalit was instrumental in changing the balance of critical power in America,” calling him “Daniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses.”

Before television, Shalit worked as an entertainment columnist for McCall’s magazine, became senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and wrote for Ladies’ Home Journal. The BBC reported that he also spent years writing columns for The New York Times, TV Guide and other publications. His magazine work helped lead to NBC, though executives initially wondered how his unconventional look would play on television.

“No one at NBC had seen him. They’d only read his stuff,” Ludwig wrote. After Shalit entered an executive’s office, Ludwig recalled, the executive said: “Mr. Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?”

On air, Shalit described himself through his approach as a critic who avoided spoiling plots. “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.

His reviews were often built around puns. He called “Frozen” “very cool,” said the title of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” was “heard to bleat,” and wrote of “The Lovely Bones”: “There’s no bones about it.” Of “Stand By Me,” he said it was different from other youth movies “because of instead of grossing you out, Stand by You is engrossing.”

He praised “Defiance,” starring Daniel Craig and Jude Law, as “a vivid dramatization of one of history’s titanic turning points.” But he also drew criticism. After calling Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in “Brokeback Mountain” a “sexual predator,” GLAAD condemned the remark, and Shalit apologized.

Shalit interviewed a wide range of celebrities, including Carol Channing, Liza Minnelli, Steven Spielberg and the “Star Wars” cast members Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill, according to the BBC. In a 1981 interview with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Belushi joked that Shalit’s hair looked like “an ant farm on fire.”

Born in New York and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Shalit started his grammar school’s first newspaper and wrote a humor column in high school. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949. He edited “Laughing Matters: A Celebration of American Humor” in 1987, and his book “Great Hollywood Wit” was published in 2002.

Shalit was parodied on “Saturday Night Live” by Horatio Sanz and made cameos on “Sesame Street,” “Family Guy” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.” He is survived by a daughter, Willa Shalit.