Gene Shalit, the bow-tied television critic whose handlebar mustache, pun-laden film reviews, and unmistakable silhouette made him one of American broadcasting’s most recognizable faces, died Friday in the Berkshires. He was 100.
His family confirmed the death to NBC News, saying he had “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life.” The Today show, which had celebrated his centennial birthday on March 25 by featuring him on a Smucker’s jar — a longstanding NBC birthday tradition — sent condolences through anchor Al Roker.
Shalit joined NBC’s Today as a part-time contributor in 1970 and moved into a full-time role as the show’s film and book critic three years later. He held that position until November 2010, a tenure of four decades that made him one of the longest-serving television critics in American history. His “Critic’s Corner” segments mixed punchy wordplay with accessible assessments of everything from summer blockbusters to literary fiction, drawing an audience that far exceeded the readership of any print critic of the era.
His influence reshaped how film criticism reached mainstream America. When he began his Today tenure, newspapers and magazines held dominant authority over movie opinion; his visible, personality-driven format helped shift critical power toward television. The rise of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel’s nationally syndicated Sneak Previews in the late 1970s, and ABC’s subsequent hiring of Joel Siegel for Good Morning America, followed in the path Shalit had already carved.
Born in New York City and raised in New Jersey, Shalit worked early in his career as a PR agent, counting Dick Clark among his clients — a relationship that ended when Clark was swept up in the 1959 payola scandal and called to testify before Congress. Clark was cleared, but the two never spoke again. Shalit moved through print, contributing to Ladies’ Home Journal, TV Guide, and The New York Times before landing at NBC.
His popularity generated cultural saturation rare for a critic: Jon Lovitz and later Horatio Sanz parodied him on Saturday Night Live, Eugene Levy portrayed him on SCTV, and the SpongeBob SquarePants writers created “Gene Scallop,” a fish food critic whose voice Shalit supplied himself.
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His career was not without controversy. His 2005 Brokeback Mountain review, in which he characterized Jake Gyllenhaal’s character as a “sexual predator,” drew a sharp rebuke from GLAAD, which called the framing “defamatory, ignorant and irresponsible.” Shalit apologized and said he regretted any hurt caused. His gay son Peter publicly defended him, arguing his father’s criticism was not rooted in homophobia.
Shalit retired in 2010 with characteristic brevity. “It’s enough already,” he said. He is survived by six children and five grandchildren.
