Eliot Wald (February 10, 1946 - July 12, 2003) was a comedy writer who worked for The Second City improv group in Chicago and for Saturday Night Live before turning to movies.
He and a partner, Andrew Kurtzman, wrote scripts for the television movie Hot Paint (1988) and for the films See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), Camp Nowhere (1994) and Down Periscope (1996).
Wald grew up in the Bronx, graduated from Bronx High School of Science (1962) and Hofstra University (B.A., 1967) and then moved to Chicago, where he wrote for underground papers and for WTTW, the public television station in that city. At the station in 1975, he came up with the idea for a movie critics' show, the program that eventually became Siskel & Ebert and later At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper.
Wald joined the staff of the Chicago Daily News to write for a youth-oriented section called Sidetracks. When the Daily News closed in 1978, he joined the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote about music, television and other topics before joining the writing staff of Second City. One of many Second City alums to join Saturday Night Live, Wald contributed to the show in an era known for performances by Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal, often collaborating with another Chicago writer, Nate Herman.
He lived and wrote in New York for five years before he and Kurtzman moved to Los Angeles. He was married to Jane Shay Wald, an intellectual property lawyer. Eliot Wald died in Los Angeles of cancer at age 57 in 2003.
Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," Tom Van Riper of Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America."
Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen and produced by Charles H. Joffe. The screenplay was written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. Allen co-stars as a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl but falls in love with his best friend 's mistress. Meryl Streep and Anne Byrne also star.
Love Story is a 1970 American romantic drama written by Erich Segal, who was also the author of the best-selling 1970 novel of the same name. It was produced by Howard G. Minsky and directed by Arthur Hiller and starred Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, alongside John Marley, Ray Milland, and Tommy Lee Jones in his film debut in a minor role.
Quiz Show is a 1994 American detective docudrama produced and directed by Robert Redford, and written by Paul Attanasio, based on Richard N. Goodwin's 1988 memoir Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties. It stars John Turturro, Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes, with Paul Scofield, David Paymer, Hank Azaria and Christopher McDonald appearing in supporting roles.
Eugene Kal Siskel was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his death in 1999.
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times. He co-hosted the television series At the Movies with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's successor. From 2010 to 2014, he co-hosted The Roe and Roeper Show with Roe Conn on WLS-AM.
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress and film producer. She began her career in the 1970s, appearing in several independent thriller films before achieving mainstream success in the mid-1980s.
Robert John Odenkirk is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, and producer. He is best known for his role as lawyer Saul Goodman on the AMC crime drama series Breaking Bad and its spin-off Better Call Saul, for which he received four nominations for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He is also known for the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David, which he co-created and starred in with fellow comic and friend David Cross.
At the Movies was an American movie review television program produced by Disney–ABC Domestic Television in which two film critics share their opinions of newly released films. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, the former hosts of Sneak Previews on PBS (1975–1982) and a similarly titled syndicated series (1982–1986). Following Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert worked with various guest critics until choosing Chicago Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper as his regular partner in 2000.
Thomas William Shales is an American writer and critic of television programming and operations. He is best known as the television critic for The Washington Post, for which Shales received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1988. He also writes a column for the television news trade publication NewsPro, published by Crain Communications.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a 1970 American satirical musical melodrama film starring Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, Phyllis Davis, John LaZar, Michael Blodgett, and David Gurian. The film was directed by Russ Meyer and co-written by Meyer and Roger Ebert.
Joel Steven Siegel was an American film critic for the ABC morning news show Good Morning America for over 25 years. The winner of multiple Emmy Awards, Siegel also worked as a radio disc jockey and an advertising copywriter.
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times. In the summer of 2011, he was appointed as curator of LACMA's new film series, Film Independent at LACMA. He is also currently a Film Scholar and lecturer at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Jon Vitti is an American writer best known for his work on the television series The Simpsons. He has also written for King of the Hill, The Critic and The Office, and has served as a screenwriter or consultant for several animated and live-action movies, including Ice Age (2002) and Robots (2005). He is one of the eleven writers of The Simpsons Movie and also wrote the screenplays for the film adaptions Alvin and the Chipmunks, its sequel and The Angry Birds Movie.
Louis M. "Deke" Heyward was an American producer and film and television screenwriter.
Charles Davenport Champlin was an American film critic and writer.
Jeffrey Lyons is an American television and film critic based in the New York metropolitan area.
Christy A. Lemire is an American film critic and host of the movie review podcast Breakfast All Day. She previously wrote for the Associated Press from 1999 to 2013, was a co-host of Ebert Presents at the Movies in 2011 and co-hosted the weekly online movie review show What The Flick?! until 2018.
Ignatiy Igorevich Vishnevetsky is a Russian-American film critic, essayist, and columnist. He has worked as a staff film critic for The A.V. Club and written for Mubi.com and the Chicago Reader.
Peter Levathes was an American film and advertising executive, best known for briefly running 20th Century Fox.
