Gene Shalit, the longtime TODAY show film critic whose colorful bowties, walrus mustache and pun-filled movie reviews made him one of television’s most recognizable entertainment voices, has died. He was 100.
Shalit died Friday, according to a statement from his family to NBC News. He “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life,” his family said.
For four decades, Shalit was a fixture on NBC’s TODAY, where he brought a playful, unmistakable style to film criticism. He first joined the program as a part-time contributor in 1970 before becoming a full-time presence three years later. He remained the show’s go-to movie reviewer until his retirement in 2010.
“The TODAY show was an extraordinary era for him,” his family said.
Shalit stood apart from other television critics through both his look and his language. His reviews in the show’s “Critics Corner” were often packed with puns, verbal flourishes, and sharp turns of phrase. Reviewing The Silence of the Lambs, he famously said the Oscar-winning thriller “may be all wool and a yard wide, but it makes a terrific yarn.”
He could also be blunt when a movie disappointed him. In his review of X-Men, Shalit said the superhero film “should not be taken seriously. In fact, it should be taken with two aspirin.”
Over the years, Shalit reviewed major Hollywood releases, interviewed some of the biggest stars in entertainment, and became a familiar morning television presence for generations of viewers. His interview subjects ranged from Oprah Winfrey and Harrison Ford to Kermit the Frog, whom he once asked whether he planned to marry Miss Piggy.
Before becoming a national television personality, Shalit built his career in print and radio. He was the senior film critic for Look Magazine and wrote the “What’s Happening?” page for Ladies’ Home Journal for 12 years. His work also appeared in publications including The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, TV Guide, Seventeen, Glamour, and McCall’s.
Shalit also wrote and broadcast a daily “Man About Anything” essay on NBC’s coast-to-coast radio network from 1969 to 1982. He later became a regular panelist on the game shows What’s My Line? and To Tell the Truth.
Born Eugene Shalit on March 25, 1926, in New York, he was raised in New Jersey. His love of journalism started early. According to his TODAY show profile, he created his elementary school’s first newspaper, The Spotlight, and even bought a fedora to look the part. He later wrote a humor column for his high school newspaper.
Shalit also had a strong Illinois connection. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949, where he worked as a sports editor, columnist and humor writer for The Daily Illini. He later became a reporter and writer for a daily newspaper in the Twin Cities and filed dispatches on Big Ten sporting events as a freelancer for The Associated Press in Chicago.
But it was on TODAY that Shalit became a national figure, mixing entertainment criticism with offbeat field reports and spontaneous on-set moments.
When he left the show in 2010, former co-host Meredith Vieira paid tribute to his singular presence. “It’s hard to imagine not having him here,” Vieira said. “He is the TODAY show.”
Shalit was married to Nancy Lewis for 28 years, from 1950 until her death in 1978. For viewers who grew up watching him, Shalit represented a different era of television criticism — one in which a movie review could arrive with a wink, a pun, a bowtie, and a mustache that seemed almost as famous as the man himself.
Rest in Power, Gene.
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