Today is the birthday of waspish American film critic and television host Mr Rex Reed. Who? I hear you say...
Largely an unknown quantity over here in Blighty, Mr Reed's controversial and much-vilified take on movies, the arts and the cult of celebrity have not exactly endeared him to generations of film-makers in the States [he was once described as "the hazel-eyed hatchet-man"]; and he has certainly rubbed the braying "Twitterati" up the wrong way on many an occasion [no bad thing!]. His nearest British [albeit somewhat more high-brow] counterpart might have been Brian Sewell. I am certain we at Dolores Delargo Towers would adore him.
It is also the perfect excuse (if any were needed!) to wallow in the man's most (ahem!) famous [and rare] on-screen appearance: as "Myron", Raquel Welch's male alter-ego - alongside an idiosyncratic cast that included John Carradine, Kathleen Freeman, Tom Selleck, Jim Backus, Farrah Fawcett, John Huston... and Mae West - in the camp cult classic Gore Vidal adaptation, Myra Breckinridge!
Rex Taylor Reed (born October 2, 1938)
Myra Breckinridge, dissected
A film equally outrageous and unwatchable...
ReplyDeleteI know a marvelous Rex Reed story, but alas I daren't tell it in public. He gets slapped!
I cannot deny, I've never sat through the film...
DeleteAs for anecdotes about Mr Reed - nothing would surprise me! Critics are rarely loved. Jx
As a kid, I loved watching Rex on the Merv show. Anyone remember a critique he gave of a Liza Minnelli movie where he called her "A bimbo with legs akimbo?" Also, is that Madonna in the red, white and blue gown;)?
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