18 Facts About Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther's work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were perceived as unnecessarily mean.

Bosley Crowther's family moved to Washington, DC, and Crowther graduated from Western High School in 1922.

Bosley Crowther declined the offer, made to him by the publisher Adolph S Ochs, hoping to find employment on a small Southern newspaper.

Bosley Crowther was the first nightclub reporter for the Times, and in 1933 was asked by Brooks Atkinson to join the drama department.

Bosley Crowther spent five years covering the theater scene in New York, and even dabbled in writing for it.

Bosley Crowther was a prolific writer of film essays as a critic for The New York Times from 1940 to 1967.

Bosley Crowther opposed censorship of movies, and advocated greater social responsibility in the making of them.

Bosley Crowther barely concealed his disdain for Joan Crawford when reviewing her films, saying that her acting style in Female on the Beach was characterized by "artificiality" and "pretentiousness," and chided Crawford for her physical bearing.

Bosley Crowther defended epics such as Ben-Hur and Cleopatra, but gave the World War II film The Great Escape a highly unfavorable review, and panned David Lean's later works.

Bosley Crowther found Akira Kurosawa's classic Throne of Blood, derived from Macbeth, ludicrous, particularly its ending; and called Gojira "an incredibly awful film".

Bosley Crowther dismissed Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as "a blot on an otherwise honorable career".

The career of Bosley Crowther is discussed at length in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism, including his support for foreign-language cinema and his public repudiation of McCarthyism and the Blacklist.

The end of Bosley Crowther's career was marked by his disdain for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

Bosley Crowther was critical of what he saw as the film's sensationalized violence.

Bosley Crowther eventually wrote three negative reviews and periodically blasted the movie in reviews of other films and in a letters column response to unhappy Times readers.

Bosley Crowther worked as an executive consultant at Columbia Pictures after leaving the Times.

Bosley Crowther died of heart failure on March 7,1981, at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York.

Bosley Crowther was survived by his wife Florence, who died in 1984; a sister, Nancy Crowther Kappes; three sons, F Bosley, John, and Jefferson; and four grandchildren.