Eugene Shalit (born March 25, 1926) is an American retired journalist, television personality, film and book critic and author. After starting to work part-time on NBC's The Today Show in 1970, he filled those roles from January 15, 1973,[1] until retiring on November 11, 2010.[2][3] He is known for his frequent use of puns, his oversized handlebar moustache and fuzzy hair, and for wearing colorful bow ties.
Shalit, according to a Dick Clark interview in The New York Times Magazine, was Clark's press agent in the early 1960s. Shalit reportedly "stopped representing" Clark during a Congressional investigation of payola. Clark never spoke to Shalit again, and referred to him as a "jellyfish".[7]
From 1970 to 1982, Shalit broadcast a daily essay, Man About Anything, for the NBC Radio Network, which was NBC's most widely carried radio feature.[1]
Shalit announced that he would leave The Today Show after 40 years, effective November 11, 2010. He was quoted as saying "It's enough already", about his retirement.[9] He has largely stayed out of the public eye since then, only appearing once for Willard Scott's retirement from NBC in 2015.[10]
Brokeback Mountain review controversy
In 2005, Shalit gave a negative review to the film Brokeback Mountain, in which he described Jack Twist (the character played by Jake Gyllenhaal) as a "sexual predator" who "tracks Ennis [Heath Ledger's character] down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) responded by stating: Shalit's "baseless branding of Jack as a 'sexual predator' merely because he is romantically interested in someone of the same sex is defamatory, ignorant, and irresponsible" and that he "used the occasion to promote defamatory antigay prejudice to a national audience."[11] Shalit's son Peter, who is gay, wrote a letter to GLAAD defending his father and stating he had not defamed anyone and was not homophobic, and further said the organization had defamed him by "falsely accusing him of a repellent form of bigotry."[12] Shalit himself apologized for the wording of his review.[13]
Written works
Shalit, Gene (1965). Somehow It Works; A Candid Portrait of the 1964 Presidential Election.
Nancy Lewis' and Gene Shalit's children include the artist and entrepreneur Willa Shalit.[15][18] Another child is Peter Shalit, a physician and recognized authority on gay men's health and living with HIV.[19][20][12] Their daughter Emily died of ovarian cancer in November 2012.[14]
On October 24, 2012, Shalit crashed his car in Lenox, Massachusetts, after accidentally falling asleep at the wheel. Misdemeanor charges of negligent driving to endanger were later dismissed after he agreed to stop driving until the dismissal, and he was to follow a "safety condition" approved by his attorney and the police chief.[17]
↑ Scherzer, Carl B. (October 1977). "Early Jewish History in Morristown". Morristown Jewish Center. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2021. Gene Shalit is not Morristown's first nationally known television personality of Jewish ancestry.
↑ "Morristown at a Glance". Gannett. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved January 27, 2008. Poet Joyce Kilmer once taught at Morristown High School, and film critic Gene Shalit got his start writing a humor column, 'The Korn Krib,' for the high school newspaper.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
