Rex Reed

Famous People I Have Known And The Songs They Sang

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Last Show: Sunday 1 st March 2020

The Pheasantry (Chelsea)

The celebrated film and nightlife critic Rex Reed from New York shares stories and songs made famous by his many friends in show business. The witty raconteur and frequent television pundit has come to singing late in his career, but he's obviously learned from the best. In his Pheasantry debut, he performs songs introduced by Doris Day, Alice Faye, Mel Torme, Harry Belafonte, Marlene Dietrich, Ann-Margret, and Mae West. Join this impressive interpreter of lyrics, and hilarious showbiz chronicler for three unforgetable night.

Rex Reed is a critic, columnist, journalist, author and lecturer whose film and theatre reviews appear every week in the NEW YORK OBSERVER.  He has been a film critic for VOGUE, GQ, HOLIDAY, and WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY.  For thirteen years, he was the film critic for the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, and for five years was the film critic for the NEW YORK POST. 

His articles and essays on the arts have appeared in almost every national magazine and newspaper in London and the United States.  He is the author of eight books about the movies and his first novel, PERSONAL EFFECTS, sold 75,000 copies in its first printing and was optioned by NBC-TV for a four-hour miniseries.  As an actor, he appeared in the films MYRA BRECKINRIDGE with Mae West and John Huston, INCHON! With Laurence Olivier and Ben Gazzarra, and SUPERMAN with Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando.  He also appeared with Melina Mercouri, Laurence Olivier, Lillian Hellman, Edward Albee, and other notables in Jules Dassin’s antiwar film THE REHEARSAL. 

He has been a member of the juries at the Montreal, Venice, and Berlin film festivals, and is proud to be the only film critic in the world to have a movie review (of the Oscar-winning anti-Vietnam film HEARTS AND MINDS) read aloud in both houses of Congress, thus becoming a permanent part of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.  He is a member and former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle.  He has appeared for several years at the country’s oldest and most successful fund-raising benefit for AIDS, the S.T.A.G.E. Benefit in Los Angeles. 

For five years, he starred in the nationally syndicated television show, “At the Movies”.  In 1993, he was inducted, along with James Carville, Al Hirt, Elizabeth Ashley and legendary Supreme Court  Judge Minor Wisdom, into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in his native state.  As a music critic, and as an ardent supporter of Broadway show music, he shares the distinction with Kitty Carlisle Hart of being the longest-running host-narrators of the popular “Lyrics and Lyrics” series at the 92nd St. Y in New York City, and has written liner notes for Liza Minnelli, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Mel Torme, Eileen Farrell, Barbara Cook and many others.  He has been nominated for two Grammy awards.  He holds a journalism degree from Louisiana State University, and also holds an honorary degree from Brandeis University.