Film Critic Rex Reed

He is a shoplifter.

There have been many threads about him.

Always found to be annoying.

at least one thread over 200+ responses on Rex Reed every single year, OP.

here is last years

He was handsome. He and Adam Lambert look very similar.

He and fellow Dakota resident Lauren Bacall had a hot and cold relationship.

She was furious when he revealed on national television the morning after John Lennon's murder that she lived there and instructed him to keep his mouth shut.

A few months later, Woman of the Year opened on Broadway and Rex trashed it in his review.

R6 - that's a good call. Although I would say Adam is better looking - but yes, they look very similar.

He was very nice to me when I met him in NY about 7-8 years ago.

He was always very stoned on sixties talk shows.

He’s had a weekend house in Roxbury, Connecticut (in Litchfield County) for ages.

Terrible eye contact. Really off-putting.

He’s still alive?!

Totally different body type than Adam Lambert. In his youth, Rex was lean and lanky.

Rex was sexy!

Handsome, but never hot. Mostly bitchy queen, so much so that my grandmother used to make jokes about his queenieness even though she liked him.

All the operations in the world couldn't turn him into Raquel Welch.

True story: Years ago at the Tennessee Williams festival in New Orleans (a weekend where writers, actors, etc. talk about the playwright), Rex got into town on a Friday and was scheduled to speak on a Saturday.

When he appeared on Saturday, he had a black eye and bruises from "falling down some stairs."

The festival staff were abuzz and smirking because "falling down some stairs" actually meant "hitting the gay dive bars for some trade and getting beat up in the bargain."

Rex the irascible Bottom.

Didn't he play the Green Hornet?

The real question is, who's he leaving his Dakota apartment to when he croaks?

He's needlessly cruel.

Someone here hooked up with him years ago just to see the Dakota.

Has anyone here had sex with him? Is he a top or bottom?

He still writes a weekly Arts/Entertainment column in the NY Observer where he recently praised Spielberg's WSS and another remake Nightmare Alley.

R25 So basically he has shitty and/or out of date taste.

R26 Not sure what you mean as WSS has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and Nightmare Alley has an 80% So, he would seem to fall in line with current critical opinion. Reed gave the former 4./4 stars and the latter 31/2 out of 4. Sounds like you've been eating sour grapes!

R27 doesn't seem to understand what "sour grapes" actually means. And can't figure out how to type a fraction.

Also, the "WSS" shit is absurd. It's "West Side Story," lazy cunts.

And of course R26, who R27 is posing at, doesn't know how to hyphenate an adjectival phrase.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Well, R28 sounds like 2022 is going to be another happy and meaningful year for you.

Rex Reed like many others bought at the Dakota (and other UWS or Manhattan co-ops) and also in Roxbury, CT at right time. Late 1960's through good part of 1970's was a totally different era when one could pick up such properties for comparatively little money. Up and down CPW plenty of actors and others in entertainment did same thing. IIRC late Stephen Sondheim also bought out in Roxbury sometime in 1970's.

Adjusted for inflation $30k in 1969 money is $227,205.45 today (2022). You can't buy a broom closet in the Dakota or anywhere else on CPW for that kind of money.

To be fair Rex Reed was a bit poor he bought that apartment in Dakota. IIRC from interviews he stated that moved belongings in a shopping cart himself.

More...

R30 and his neighbors won't be Alex Rodriquez, Cher, Madonna, Billy Joel, Tea Leoni, Melanie Griffith or Judd Apatow and his insufferable wife as they were all rejected by the co-op board.

Reed was criticized for describing Melissa McCarthy as 'tractor-sized' and 'hippo' in his 2013 review of Identity Theft. Reed refused to apologize. He did praise her performance as Lee Israel in 'Can You Ever Forgive Me' (2018). Reed apparently knew Lee Israel.

R28 'is posing at' WTF! Pardon the abbreviation.

Didn't he have something of a masturbation scene, though mostly out of frame, in "Myra Breckenridge"? He was quite cute back then.

Sondheim didn’t buy in CT until the 80s. Reed is the cuntiest cunt who ever counted.

[quote]Reed is the cuntiest cunt who ever counted.

Counted what? All the money he made?

R28 hasn’t been fucked in 30 years.

He was way better than Simon Cowell. On "The Gong Show", he once asked a 350 female dancer if they could arrange a Thursday at Pismo Beach.

Why did he let himself go when he was so cute when he was younger?

Jared Kushner canned Rex Reed and some others in a clearing out of masthead back in 2017.

Something must have happened because RR is back as of 2021. Who groveled to who, that is the question...

Recent RR article in NY Observer...

Don't think it's a matter of "letting himself go"....

As nature intends most humans are at their peak of physical attraction by late teens into young adult period. Time passes into middle age and beyond; that's when changes happen which cannot always be controlled.

Sure there are things one can do such as diet, physical activity and whatever, but good part of aging is genetics. Other huge part is what one did with that body in one's youth. Hard living of booze, ciggies, drugs and so forth usually means one ages into something that looks like it was rode hard and put away wet.

Enjoy...

From 2018 NYT interview with Rex Reed..

"Mr. Reed may not have made a fortune in the film business, but he is sitting on millions of dollars of real estate. “It’s an awfully comfortable bachelor pad,” he said of the book-filled Dakota apartment he has lived in since 1969, which he bought for $30,000.

He found the apartment through his friendship with Ruth Ford, the Broadway actress who lived there with her husband, the actor Zachary Scott, whose family “owned half of Texas,” Mr. Reed said. The playwright William Inge, Judy Garland, Judy Holliday and the saxophone player Gerry Mulligan were all neighbors at various points.

“I moved into this apartment with an A.&P. shopping cart, some books and whatever I could drag over from my little walk-up on 73rd Street,” Mr. Reed said. His only furniture was a corduroy Queen Anne chair and a sleeping bag. The night he moved in, the film star Robert Ryan, who was president of the Dakota’s board, rang the doorbell to welcome him, and the two shared instant coffee, Mr. Reed on the sleeping bag, Mr. Ryan in the chair. “Do you think that happens today?” he asked."

His asshole has a lisp. He looks nothing like Adam Lambert. Adam has real male sexual energy. Reed was disgusting and sneering. He must have had blackmail on someone because he was not only flamboyantly gay, he was stupid and bitchy. Boys In The Band bitter energy. I was born in 1983 and have never heard of him. Then I watched Dick Cavett. If Truman Capote was faggier and talentless - he'd be a lot like Rex Reed? Reed was a racist too when he wasn't being beaten. Does OP realize that 1969 was 53 years ago? Rex Reed is ugly in spirit, deed and body. Gross. That type of gay man is DEAD.

And no, I don't mean effeminate gay men, we still love that. But it's done much better these days. Rex Reed was full of self loathing that he projected onto the world. Still a few bitter old white men like him - right here on DataLounge.

Ruth Ford and the Dakota apartments dirt....

Butler who inherited those Dakota apartments from Ruth Ford.

For record, no, Indra Tamang never moved into the Dakota apartments he inherited. One or both were subsequently sold on.

That's the thing with co-ops; just because someone inherits it does not follow board will allow said person to move in/transfer shares.... Often person must go through same vetting process as anyone else seeking to buy into building.

Indra Tamang had no money or connections. All wealth he had largely came from inheriting those two apartments. Highly doubt he would have been able to pay monthly fees on one much less two of those Dakota apartments. So he had no choice but to sell up.

I think the last part of what Reed says in the clip is "...with a gun."

Actually I think it's "...though with a gun."

Keep in mind I could be completely wrong but I'm just trying to help.

Rex says he loves to watch the Oscars with a club sandwich 🥪 in bed.

Two random published interviews c. 1968 Venice Film Festival made him a name - one with Buster Keaton on death's door and another with French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. He got these interviews by posing as a legitimate journalist.

In the 80s he admitted that he made up everything in Belmondo interview as he didn't speak French and Belmondo didn't speak English and there were no interpreters at hand. He doesn't seem to have any sort of journalistic or critical ethical standards, but I guess that was the spirit of the 1960s.

His reviews also mostly sucked. If I wanted to read someone's bad film opinions, I'd pick Pauline Kael, because she's at least intelligent.

How does he afford the property taxes ?

He was the NELLIEST queen ever to draw breath.

One could get SCORCHED 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 just by watching him on TV.

Does his pussy stink?

Probably the Ur-eldergay here on Datalounge.

What a shock, he loved CMBMN.

Which square did they stick him when he was part of "The New Hollywood Squares"?

R55 ever hear of Carson Kressley?

I usually NEVER find effeminate men attractive but I gotta admit, Rex Reed was hot in his day.

R41 He was gone for long. On Dec. 26, 2017, he posted his list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst films of 2017. He column appears weekly on Friday.

R41 wasn't gone

He is the crankiest of eldergays from a bygone era -- what many a DL poster strives for -- seated at the right hand of Mother Almighty, Truman Capote, and across from Gore Vidal.

[quote]You don't hear much about him lately but at one time he was considered a hottie.

A HOTTIE? By who?

Rex Reed sexy? Never. And a lousy film reviewer and not a very cozy fella either.

R58 he also loved Call Me by Your Name

I met him socially several years ago. He was very pleasant and cordial. Some of that bitchiness was an attitude he adopted to get attention and publicity.

Questionable anal hygiene, that one.

[quote]How does he afford the property taxes?

In a Co-op, you only pay what they tell you. It's called 'Maintenance.'

[quote]Reed was criticized for describing Melissa McCarthy as 'tractor-sized' and 'hippo' in his 2013 review

Rex is forever a busy queen looking for his dream girl.

In 2018, Reed stated, "Love is not something that I’ve been really good at. I think people are intimidated by people with opinions. How do you go start looking for a wife or a boyfriend or a significant other? It’s too late. It would be nice, though, to find somebody who’s really handy with a wheelchair, because that day is coming".

[quote]It would be nice, though, to find somebody who’s really handy with a wheelchair, because that day is coming

If Martha Raye could, so can you Rex!

R71, in 980 Reed told David Susskind that he wasn't married because women didn't play Nat King Cole records.

He's a bitch as a reviewer, but is otherwise a fun and kind person.

I'm sure, R74.

Polly Bergen Paul Newman, Natalie Wood and Liz Smith were among his friends and acquaintances.

^ unlike Capote, Reed didn't turn on his friends.

I read somewhere, probably here, that his apartment is a glorified closet. Maybe fashioned out of a room each from two units, or some corner space that wouldn't have been considered a residence back in the day. It's certainly the smallest apartment at the Dakota.

R73. I know he’s old but did he really say that in 980?

R45. He looks like Jiminy Gluck post (unsuccessful) bariatric surgery in that photo.

Taxes in NY co-ops are normally allotted via size of apartment which also reflected in number of shares held. Larger apartments have more shares thus also pay higher monthly fees and taxes.

Tons of stately UWS courtyard and other prewar buildings were hot messes by 1950's and certainly into 1960's and 1970's. If you knew where to look finding something cheap to buy or rent wasn't that difficult. Indeed many of these buildings had tons of rent controlled or stabilized tenants.

Like many UWS buildings saving of the Dakota came when it went co-op. When Stephen Clark died in 1960 family properties (including the Dakota) went into a family trust with the Dakota offered up for sale. Residents (tenants) fretted over fate of building such it might be torn down (a reality in 1960's Manhattan), so banded together and eventually bought the building forming a corporation.

As another poster noted Rex Reed's apartment like others on top floors once held laundry and servant housing. Edward Clark, developer of the Dakota, created huge apartments by moving servants quarters to those top floors. Spare rooms for guests occupied lower two floors, thus main apartments did not require spare bedrooms either.

Storage spaces are located in basements, and they fetch very good money when offered for sale.

I!ve spent some time with Rex as a house guest (he was too) back in late 80s and a few evenings in town with a mutual friend. He was kind of like his rep- and not remotely attractive. My beef with him is that he’s not particularly bright. I’ve never understood the how and why he became a “writer” and arts “reviewer” because he’s pretty mediocre at both. He simply a gay n man with strong likes and dislikes about film, theater and it’s stars and lesser players. His criticism if you can call it that, was a lot like John Simon- a really awful man.

R53

Red Reed was busted and stuck in Europe at that time having spent all his money. Without funds he couldn't eat, find place to stay and of course get back to USA. So he hit upon that idea to bluff his way into those two interviews which he promptly sold for ready money.

Rest of us finding ourselves in that sort of situation back then would have called home (collect) and asked someone to send money to nearest American Express office. *LOL*

Suppose Rex Reed could have done the other bit; turn a few tricks, but that likely never occurred to him at the time.

Interesting DL style side note regarding the film All Fall Down (1962) Angela Lansbury b .1925 played Beatty's mother though she was just 12 years older than him and Eva Marie Saint b.1924 who played his love interest was 13 years older than Beatty and 1 year older than Lansbury!

Rex Reed himself was an only child IIRC. His mother and think also father came from large families, so there may be cousins or other relations. Otherwise where will his estate go?

Am surprised RR has kept that Dakota apartment given his age and issues getting around. Likely hires a car to take him back and forth from Roxbury, but doubt that is a daily commute.

Of course long as he can afford to keep up both properties, having that place at Dakota does give RR a bolt hole in Manhattan.

Like so many others who bought many years ago if RR sold today he's probably get a nice ROI, but wouldn't be able to find another deal on prewar CPW building like Dakota. Lincoln Square yes....

R81 Did you have sex with him? And about how tall was he? Tell us some good stories!

Rex Reed was not attractive. He looks like the love child of Lisa Marie Presley and W.C. Fields.

The Rex-master General on Playboy After Dizz-ark

I'm sure he's done the best he could with the hand God dealt him.

What a snapshot of the era that is, r88. Two major female abusers—Ike Turner AND Bill Cosby—plus Anthony Newley, Jerry Lewis, Barbi Benton. Fascinating.

If Reed were to write a candid autobiography, I'd read it.

R85, WARNING: R81 is the infamous "charlie," and his stories are greatly embellished.

R88 thanks for that link. Far out. Was Hugh already into cock back then?

My first encounter with Rex Reed's writing was a collection of exceptionally sharp celebrity interviews he conducted for various magazines and newspapers that were collectively published in 1968 under the title DO YOU SLEEP IN THE NUDE? I bought the paperback as a teen and still have it.

His descriptions of the interviewees and their lifestyles was always deliciously perceptive, intimate and discerning and he consistently got the most outrageous quotes from them, asking pertinent and knowledgeable and very specific questions, probably in what came off back then as a brash youthful Southern charm. A new form of celeb journalism very different from the likes of the fawning Sidney Skolsky, Earl Wilson and Rona Barrett.

Among the 35 profiles (all done in the mid-1960s), the most memorable were of Barbra Streisand, Lucille Ball, Warren Beatty, Mike Nichols, Sandy Dennis, Angela Lansbury, Hayley Mills, Gwen Verdon, Lotte Lenya, James Mason, Gower Champion, Melina Mercouri, Otto Preminger and Marlene Dietrich and especially a restless and uncensored Ava Gardner, who memorably responded to his question about Mia Farrow: "Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a boy!" But my favorite in the collection might have been with Shirley Knight in which she unhesitatingly exposes her worst experiences in Hollywood and on Broadway, naming several famous names.

The pieces are a wonderful time capsule of that time in American culture and popular entertainment when everything was changing so rapidly. Re-reading them now, they may seem a little less outrageous and disarming than they did back in the 1960s (what wouldn't?) but they're still worth a read if you can get hold of them.

And as Jacqueline Susann blurbs on the paperback cover: "If I had an affair with Jack the Ripper, the offspring would be Rex Reed!"

Major pussy hound. Big Bush supporter.

Wait, so very stupid question here...even though he only paid $30K for the apartment decades ago, is he now required to pay taxes on what the apartment is currently worth? Seems if he's owned it since the 60s, he'd pay taxes based on what he paid for it.

It's a Co-op, not a condo, R96.

Why doesn't he just live out in the suburbs, with REAL Americans?

Described the love scene in Titanic as a chihuahua mounting a golden retriever.

r94 it's now available on Kindle

[quote] If Reed were to write a candid autobiography, I'd read it.

It would be one long word:

HISSSSSSSSSSSSS

R88, you know it wasn't the place to be when Bill Maher started going there

Rex Reed has earned everything he's acquired in his lifetime, people need to live their own lives, you can't live for others, he definitely made some astute financial choices, otherwise he'd be living on the street. As a child of the 1970s into the 80s, I remember his movie reviews and talk show appearances at the time as being of some importance, because some people hated him. That means he made an impression. Hope his twilight years are peaceful and dignified. Also I'd read his candid autobiography if he ever decided to write one.

^ MARY!

DOUBLE MARY!

MARY! MARY! MARY!

As a teenaged gayling I enjoyed his "reviews" and even bought his collection when it was published as a paperback book. But really, his "criticism" was adolescent and had little substance. Everybody did drugs in those days but it seems to have done him permanent damage.

[quote]at one time he was considered a hottie.

LOL!

The Keaton interview is widely available online, but the Belmondo interview exists only (as far as I know) in a collection of RR profiles Do You Sleep in the Nude?

Miss Swish. His movie reviews were worthless. His "acid-tongued queen" thing was embarrassing.

The bossiest of the bossy bottom boys.

Rex on nemesis Barbra Streisand's movie debut in Funny Girl:

People are always asking me for a definition of star quality...Barbra has defined it for generations to come.

Through some mysterious biological magic, she has turned into an orchard harvest of ripening womanhood - warm, moving, soft, sensual and mature.

MARY!!!

Was Rex a Studio 54 regular?

Patty Duke looked so pretty @R88 She had great hair.

R113

Oh Miss Ghurl, everyone who was anyone went to Studio 54. I'm talking about VIP area or "A" list parties, and or at least before the place became a B&T tourist trap.

That being said, by his own admission Rex Reed wasn't a regular at Studio 54. Just wasn't his sort of place I suppose.

I did love him in My Fair Woman. He farted! I heard it!

I loved his cameo in Superman The Movie

Lois Lane: Hi Rex, seen anything good today?

Rex : Not until you came along

Size Meat Verificatia? By the way, Dick Cavett was and remains a big queen. Even if he is hetero, he's a queen.

Rex Reed was never into the Studio 54 scene. He was more invested in the worlds of old Hollywood and Broadway and was more than likely to be seen in piano bars like Marie's Crisis and Rose's Turn

R119 Cavett always seemed like someone who secretly loved cock but decided he was going to try heterosexuality.

May be the best explanation for the fact that he married a very dramatic actress, whose performances bordered on campy drag at times.

[quote] He still writes a weekly Arts/Entertainment column in the NY Observer where he recently praised Spielberg's WSS and another remake Nightmare Alley.

I used to read him when i moved to the big city in the ‘90s. Then he spoiled the ending of a movie he didn’t like, and I was forever done with him. I don’t regret it. Being a pissy queen is one thing, but THAT was just unprofessional. Im glad he’s getting fired. It was decades overdue.

[quote] Why doesn't he just live out in the suburbs, with REAL Americans

Like most if us who don’t live there, he’s SEEN ‘real’ Americans.

[quote] Major pussy hound. Big Bush supporter

How odd. That line was played out and unfunny when it was actually relevant, fifteen year ago. Did they have you frozen in cryo all this time? Go back to sleep.

[quote] Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

One ‘oh, dear,’ can be amusing, FOUR just looks desperate and shrill. You lose.

Whomever above spoke about Cavett being a queen, I tend to agree. His is one of a handful of celeb bios I picked up at the library and couldn't get through. He wrote about being propositioned in a bathroom in Omaha when he was a teenager, but never followed through with the story. Which led me to believe something happened, and he either blocked it out or wanted to remain the sacred widower of Carrie Nye/Tallulah 2.0.

There used to be a story about Cavett (I had friends who knew him and his wife well) that had him hooking up with a guy and telling him, "if you tell anyone this happened, I'll kill you." Don't know if it's true, but it has the ring of truth.

Tom Wolfe raved about Reed’s writing in his primer of New Journalism, thought it’s stylistically comparable to Capote’s prose in Music for Chameleons. Undue praise aside Reed’s profile of Ava Gardner is highly entertaining, and should be ranked alongside Kenneth Tynan’s essay of Louise Brooks as the best movie star profiles of all time.