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
