Gene Shalit, the colorful film critic and arts commentator who became one of the most recognizable faces of American morning television, has died at the age of 100. His passing was confirmed by his family to NBC, which said he had passed away peacefully after, in their words, one hundred years of an amazing life.
For four decades, Shalit was an integral part of NBC's Today show, where his reviews and commentary turned film criticism into a morning ritual for millions of viewers. He joined the program as a contributor in 1970 and went on to become its entertainment correspondent and movie critic, eventually anchoring his own segment known as Critic's Corner.
His appearance alone made him unmistakable. With a pouf of dark, frizzy hair, a thick handlebar mustache, oversized glasses and a rotating collection of floppy, colorful bow ties, Shalit cultivated an almost absent-minded-professor image that set him apart from the polished look of network television.
Just as distinctive was his style of writing and speaking, built on a relentless love of puns and wordplay. He was never one to mince words about a film he disliked, and his blunt verdicts, delivered with a wink, became part of his trademark charm in the Critic's Corner.
Shalit was born in 1926 in Morristown, New Jersey, where his parents, immigrants from Latvia, ran a drugstore. He showed an early instinct for journalism, writing a humor column for his high school newspaper long before he became a household name on national television.
When he stepped away from Today in 2010, he was among the last high-profile film critics still working on a major American network, the end of an era in which a single trusted voice could shape how a broad audience approached the movies of the moment.
Shalit had only recently reached his milestone birthday, turning 100 on the 25th of March 2026, an occasion marked with a special tribute on the very program he had helped define. His death now closes the book on a remarkable life that spanned a century and left a lasting imprint on the way Americans talked about film.