By Chip Deffaa***I’m sorry to note the passing of Rex Reed. He was 87. And it’s startling for me to write that he was 87, because to me he was always the handsome, dashing young man about town whom I first met decades ago. (That’s why I’m including a couple of shots of him when he was younger, in the 1970s, as well as a couple shots of him from more recent years—one recent shot of him by himself (feature image), and one 
with several cabaret stars he liked very much: KT Sullivan, Joyce Breach, and Jeff Harnar.
I liked Rex. Oh, he could be quite acerbic in reviews if he didn’t like a film or a concert, or a cabaret show. But if he liked you—and we always got along great—he was a pussycat.
I remember one night when we both saw some remarkably dreadful young cabaret singer, who was thrilled that anyone had even come to see her. After the show, she gushed to him that she couldn’t wait to see what he’d write about her. He was gracious to her. Then, when she left, he told me: “I’m not going to write anything about her; it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.” If she were some big-name celebrity doing a bad show, he’d have written a review dripping with acid. But he didn’t want to gratuitously skewer some unknown newcomer trying her best in a small cabaret room. I liked that.
When he wrote for The New York Post, his title was “film critic,” and some obits identify him as a film critic. But he was much more than just a film critic. In the dozen years he wrote for The Daily News, they called him an “Arts Critic,” which he preferred, because he loved all of the lively arts; he liked cabaret, theater and concerts as much as film. And his interviews with celebrities (often, famously, asking them in the early days, “Do you sleep in the nude?” and other “daring” questions in a more innocent age) were always fun to read. He occasionally appeared in films himself—the best-known one being Myra Breckenridge (which he proudly proclaimed was, in his opinion, “one of the year’s top-ten worst films.”
He was, I felt, almost born to be a critic. He had high standards and bemoaned mediocrity wherever he found it. And he was ready to evaluate and rate or rank seemingly anything he encountered. One night, at Feinstein’s at the Regency—then one of New York’s most celebrated nightspots—we were about to see Rosemary Clooney, a 
master artist. But long before Clooney came on stage to entertain us, Rex was passing judgement on every bit of food being served. When the dessert arrived, he took one taste—it was NOT up to his standards. “You call THIS creme brule?” he called out to a startled busboy. “Take it back and bring me a better one. This is not creme brule; this is concrete.” I laughed. He was a character.
He was proud he came from humble origins. (He said the most successful members of his family were outlaws—he insisted that the members of the infamous Dalton Gang were relatives.) He said his first “real” job was working as a publicist for 20th Century Fox. When the film studio fired him, he turned to freelance writing out of necessity, interviewing celebrities he’d met. He was surprised when New York newspapers accepted his freelance interviews. But he was on his way. And he really loved his work.
